


Between Death And Immortality

by Dwale



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Death is a theme here, Domestic Violence, Hospitals, I swear I'll stop killing babies, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Stiles Stilinski Gets Shot, Then he's offered a job, a super hero dog, and die, death of a...rat, gotta work after death to pay for the pension, house fire, i can't write Peter Hale but god I'll try my best, i know nothing about baby delivery, in that order, mentioned death of a baby, office shooting, that's not stopping me, to save Derek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:48:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26950897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dwale/pseuds/Dwale
Summary: "“Oh god, I'm dead, aren't I?” he said, eyes still closed.“Well, yeah,” said a voice above him. The “duh!” while not said out loud, rang loud and clear in her tone."Stiles is dead, apparently.That, he gets. He doesn't like it, but he gets it.What he doesn't get is why others go to the bright fucking light while he's stuck with paperwork, watching people die, and telling them their time is up. Oh, and catching fire from time to time.God, being dead sucks.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 24
Kudos: 131





	1. Death is just another path, one that we all must take.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I haven't watched the show in a lifetime or two, tbh I haven't even finished it, but this has been sitting quietly in a corner of my head and I wanted to give it a chance.  
> This story deals with suicide and death quite a bit, so be careful if that's something you're not comfortable with. Angst is a given but I don't think this gets too dark? I'll update the tags accordingly.
> 
> There will be errors, since English isn't my first language, and I don't have a beta. You can point them out, if you want.
> 
> Title from Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I could not stop for Death"

The problem with werewolves, Stiles thought, clutching at his bloody chest, was their supernatural ability to make everything go to shit in a heartbeat. The problem with hunters, on the other hand, was their propensity to resolve any problem with a spray of bullets.

There were screams, and roars, and pain. Lots of it. Then something tilted the world around him and suddenly everything went black.

Waking up sucked. He was lying down on something rough and cold, concrete maybe, and his whole body felt like mashed potatoes. Very spicy mashed potatoes.

He breathed through his nose and tried to remember what happened. Oh yeah, poor life choices, that's what happened. He saw flashes of the hunters and the ugly face one of them sported, a nasty smile and the bullet. Right, he remembered the bullet now. It had hurt like a... Wait.  
It must have hurt. Obviously. But now that he was thinking about it, he wasn't really in pain. Anywhere. At all. He was just...buzzing. Faintly.

“Oh god, I'm dead, aren't I?” he said, eyes still closed, trying to localize the hand that was surely siphoning his pain. If one of those fuckers ever tried and bad touch him again just to be funny he was going to put mistletoe in their underwear.

“Well, yeah,” said a voice above him. The “duh!” while not said out loud, rang loud and clear in her tone.

Stiles' eyes snapped open. There was a girl.

“Who're you?” he asked, pushing himself up on one elbow. He didn't move much more than that, if she were any danger, she wouldn't have waited for him to wake up.

The girl sighed and offered him a hand. He considered it for a moment before accepting her help.

“I'm Julia, I'm your DDA.”

He looked at her with a blank stare. “DDA?”

She sighed again. “Designated Death Announcer.”

What.

“What?”

“You're dead. Congratulations, you've successfully killed yourself. Hooray.”

Stiles couldn't hold back a nervous laugh. “Except, no! I absolutely did not kill myself. I...I remember, I was with Scott and Derek, and...and there were hunters for a truce and...” He paused. And that bastard snuck a gun into the meeting. And he stepped in front of Derek. And he took the fucking wolfsbane bullet. Fuck.  
He ran a hand through his hair, scraping painfully at his scalp. At least he tried. It didn't hurt. Holy crap, he died. He really did die this time. What about Derek? Or Scott?  
Oh god, what about his dad? This was going to kill him. Hey, maybe they would meet. No- no jokes about that.

The girl -Julia- sighed again. Stiles attention shifted toward her. Was she Death? With her black t-shirt that read “Not all those who wander are lost” with a picture of Aragorn scratching his head, a map in his hand. Talk about image blown.  
She watched him watch her, but before he even opened his mouth, she cut him short. “No.”

Stiles deflated. “Alright, then how does this work?” 

Everything considered, he was taking this pretty damn well, the whole killing himself and...wait a minute.

“Hold on, hold on. I get the whole 'dead' thing, it's okay, well, it's not, but I can't do anything about it, can I? You'd tell me if I could, right? I mean, if coming back to life was a possibility, you would inform me of this particular close in the contract, right?”

She rolled her eyes and muttered something he couldn't hear. “No, you can't do anything. But it's great that you understand that you're dead, makes my work a lot easier,” she said, pulling out a file. “So, soul collected,” she looked up briefly, “ intact, death by suicide-”

“Wait! No! I mean, no, not suicide. Are you nuts? I did not kill myself, come on!”

She looked up again, clear boredom written on her face, waiting. But Stiles wasn't letting this go. God damn it! He woke up to be told he was dead, he couldn't feel anything anymore, cold, warm or pain, that girl was a freaking nightmare to talk to and worst of all, they couldn't even get his death right! If there was one thing you could do for someone who just died, it was acknowledge how! He pretended not to hear her sigh when she slid her finger several time against the file, going through pages and pages of what he just realized was his file. 

Holy crap, did this contain his whole life? Everything he did? Ever? 

Maybe there were stats? How many times did he almost died? Probably a lot. How many pizza did he eat? Probably even more. How many sleepless nights playing videogames with Scott? Not ever enough.

How many times did he save Derek? One last.

Julia seemed to have found what she was looking for. “Let's see. You jumped in front of a bullet, knowing this would probably kill you.”

“Yes! No! Well, yes, but I didn't know for sure I would die. And there was a second party involved in my death, so definitely not suicide. More like...Sacrifice!”

She raised a questioning eyebrow. “Sacrifice. Like, a willing sacrifice. As in facing your own death voluntarily?”

“Yes!” he exclaims, before realizing what she said. “Wait, no. Sacrifice as in...” he trailed, frantically looking for an other definition possibly more pleasant than this one.  
Giving up his life for someone else's? Shit.  
Facing his own demise for the greater good? Crap.

Stiles shook his head vehemently, “But someone killed me! He shot me!”

Her eyes scanned the pages lazily. “Look, there's always a second party involved in suicide. People who jump from a bridge don't die because they jump, they die because they land, but I don't see you blaming the water or the concrete or even physics. And in fact, he aimed and shot at Derek. You decided on your own to step in front of it. Look, I get it, maybe you think this will be bad form on your life, or the end of it, but nobody judges you for something like this,” she paused, and then, pointing at the file, “And it's all written in here, everything you said on the matter. I can't change it, you can't change it, let's just move on.”

But Stiles was still reeling. Since when sacrifice meant suicide? It was something honorable, right?  
“But I could never kill myself.”

She stared at him with unimpressed eyes before lowering them onto her papers. “'This is suicide, guys", "that's a stupid plan, we're gonna die',” she read tonelessly, “'hey, if I wanted to kill myself, I wouldn't choose skinned by shady hunters, you know", "of course I'm coming, I'm gonna have to save your asses even if it kills me", and so on, and so on, you're quite the complainer.”

“That doesn't mean anything, you can't take my words out of context!”

“Yeah, because walking in a warehouse knowing your chances of getting out damage free weren't that great to begin with and purposefully taking a bullet isn't near suicide, you're right, genius.”

"But I didn't know it would come to that!"

"Do you think people know from day one they're going to kill themselves?" she asked, and Stiles could see he had touched a nerve. "There's like, hundreds of type of suicide, from the classic pills to the 'I'm going to party and drink too much every night even though I know it's bad' type, but let's not forget the 'I have a weird pain in my body but it's probably nothing so I'm definitely not going to get it checked out'."

"What? But that doesn't even make sense! Have you seen the cost of medical care in this country? Is everybody killing themselves for you?"

She shrugged, "Pretty much, yeah."

Stiles could just stand there, speechless, and watch as she snapped his file, life -how come he never noticed the two words were so similar?- close. He swallowed with difficulty. “That's so fucked up."

"I know, right?"

Silence.

"So, what now?”

“Dunno, never been. What do you believe in? God? Gods? Reincarnation? Nothing?”

“Wow, given all that, we better believe in something nice, is that what you're saying?” he joked, faintly.

He felt lightheaded all of a sudden, like his death hadn't registered until now, but now the idea had firmly taken root in his brain. But there he was, on the edge of the cliff, not ready to jump. It was kind of funny that he didn't even think about jumping in front of Derek, he wasn't scared then, but now that he was already dead, the afterlife scared him shitless. How ironic was that?

“I'm not saying anything, you believe in what you want to believe in. Obviously, the agnostics are always a bit of a problem, but they have all the informations necessary in the Library, so eventually they make a choice, well, they go through every thought and they use them like a buzzfeed quizz, you know.”

“How do you know that?” he asked as she gave her watch a few taps. “How do people end up working here? Is this like purgatory or something?”

Her eyes lit up with interest for the first time since they met. “You know, I never thought about that. At first I thought it must be where the agnostic go after they died, but then I kinda hated the job so I thought, nah, this must be hell, you know, files and people management? Urgh!” she flapped her hand with a disgusted face. 

“Why Hell?” 

“Well, I did kill myself,” she answered lightly, then, added with a wry smile, “Took too many pills, and like I told you, you're not supposed to do that, apparently. But that was at least fifty deaths ago, it's in the past.”  
She sighed, but not at him this time, and looked at her watch, frowning slightly. “It's never late. What are they doing?”

Stiles could hear blood pounding in his ears, could see his feet dangling of the cliff, no chance of turning back. No chance of seeing Derek again. Still not ready to jump. And Julia would be the one giving him the push.

Julia must have sensed his heart was beating out of his chest and must be worried for her assessment because she started talking, throwing informations at him a mile a minute.

“You know, it's a whole company out there, bureaucracy at its finest and all that crap. Need a lot of hands for the paperwork. I'm working the field, CALIDDA, California Designated Death Announcer. Your file and everyone else's start with the Birth Department, of course, and you gotta hand it to those guys, they know what they're doing. They're documenting births from everywhere. Hospitals, churches, airports, houses and god knows where people give birth. And that's just North America, I've heard there's some shady ones in Europe. I worked once with one of them, we were in hospital, it was touch and go for the kid, you know. Sometimes our files aren't correct, or something has changed and everything goes out of the path we wrote.”

Stiles didn't dare blink, letting her gather her thought in peace. Ah! In peace. Funny.

“Anyway, this guy was telling me about those quintuplets born in a car so small they could barely fit in there, and how three of them were girls, but he knew the doctors would be calling only two of them girls and that one of the boy would probably die because of the bluishness around his mouth, because it was freezing outside, you know. Told me the DDA appeared just as he wrote that down. Crazy.”

He took a deep breath to center himself. “And...did the baby survive?”

“Which one? The boy in the car? No. The DDA took him and handed him to someone else. Never knew what happen to the babies, they know nothing yet. Maybe they have a daycare here. Do they even grow up?" She paused as if to think about it for a second, then shook her head. "Anyway, the one in the hospital? Yes. I had to watch and hear all those screams for nothing, thank you very much.”

She took a quick look at her watch, and now that Stiles was looking too, he could see it only showed five acronyms, two of them separated by a grey area covering what was supposed to be between twelve and two. The only hand was currently pointing at FPW and showed no signs of moving.

“What does FPW mean?”

“Filling out, for the paperwork. But I did that already! It should have happened by know!” Julia growled in frustration, giving him the evil eye, as if it was his fault they were stuck here, and pacing from the boiler to the fallen rusty beam.

Stiles took this opportunity to look around. He did have a look before, he hadn't been about to let Scott and Derek and himself walk into an ambush. So he had watched the place for three days before the meeting and showed up two hours earlier than planned. Just in case. Of course knowing they didn't plan for an ambush but a frontal assault didn't matter now, even thought it was stupid. Very, very, deeply stupid.  
His eyes darted to the door of the warehouse on their own accord. He could still see Scott in front of them, just as he could still remember Derek growing restless as the discussion went on and the two douchebags showed no signs of wanting to budge. Then the gun. And the fear. Not for him, but for Derek. Why do bad guys always target Derek first? Sure, the guy was grumpy and a Hale, but really, of all the members of their little band, Allison was by far the scariest with a weapon. And let's not talk about Lydia's terrifying brain. Too bad they hadn't been there. They would have both died before that asshole pulled his gun out. 

Speaking of, no blood.

Huh.

He could understand the no blood thing where he...died. Yes, died. He did die here. He swallowed hard and shook his head to clear it. Yes, no blood because there wasn't an exit wound, and given how close he had been from the hunter, that meant that it had been a very small caliber, one that can be hidden somewhere convenient, like a sleeve. 

God dammit, his death had been the remake of Back to the Future 3.

But no blood also meant that the hunter didn't die a terrible and bloody death. Which was unfortunate because he would have loved that. How come Scott didn't kill them for Stiles? Friendship bracelets were out, but avenging your best friend's injury by eviscerating and exsanguinating the perpetuators of said tragedy was totally okay by his book. Wasn't this like the modern “get well soon” card for the people dealing with the supernatural wilderness?  
“I ripped the throat out of the guy who shot you, Stiles.”  
“Why, thank you! It means a lot!”

Stiles sighed and cast a glance toward Julia but she was busy...waiting. And probably sighing while doing it.

Then, just as he was about to ask for more details about his current situation instead of having fake conversation with someone who sounded suspiciously like Derek, a bright, blinding light suddenly appeared on Julia's left, forcing them to cover their eyes, before ceasing just as abruptly.  
Someone stood there instead, a giant pair of sunglasses eating half their face while they pated down where their clothes seemed to be smoking.

“Ah! I hate when it does that!” they said, craning their neck to check their back. “Do you mind?”  
Julia rolled her eyes but pated them on their ass, which, all considered was a lot more “fan a potential fire” than “extinguish a potential fire" if someone asked Stiles, but whatever.

“What are you doing here, Sam?” The ghost of a smile played on her lips. “I didn't do anything wrong, this one's okay with it all. Mostly.”

“True, love, but that's not why I'm here,” they said, removing their sunglasses to reveal deep brown eyes and a lot of freckles, still visible on their brown skin. “I'm here for him. And you. It will makes sense, don't worry.”

“Wonderful, I just can't wait for something to actually do,” Stiles snarked back, stuffing his hands in his pockets. It was actually nice that he had kept his clothes, this would have been a thousand time more awkward had he been stark naked. He looked down, struck by a sudden thought. Yes, there it was, The Hole. The god damn bullet hole. Still, no blood, that would have been gross and sticky after a while. He lifted a hand, ready to poke, just to see if he could stick his finger inside, when the guy–girl–person of unidentified gender, spoke up again.

“Now, now, don't get all yappy on me alright? Everything is going exactly just as planned, which is nice, alright, for a change. We weren't sure you would jump in and all that, but you do seem to love your Derek quite a bit, hmm?”

“Wha...I mean, I don't....what?” Stiles could only choke out, his chest suddenly tight.

“It's all right, buddy,” Sam exclaimed with a large smile, their eyes sparkling just as much as their teeth. “No judgment here, from what I've read he's a pretty nice fellow, you know, though I never saw his file. Surely he deserves you.”

Stiles let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. 'Never saw his file' they said. That should be good, right? When the people in charge of your passing never read your file, you were definitely good, right? And not dead or dying, right?

“But what are you here for, then?” Julia chimed in.

“Ah, yes, my job,” they said, sobering quickly, and pulling out a tablet. No budget cut in the death business, that was for sure. “Julia McKinnen, I have the honor of releasing you of your functions of California Designated Death Announcer, you will be processed through the system by an alternative branch and given the choice of your next destination. The last soul you collected will be your successor and I will personally supervise their apprenticeship. This takes effect immediately and is irrevocable.”

Silence rang loudly in the warehouse, as both Julia and Stiles tried to process the words. She was being fired. And he had to take her place. At doing what? Collecting souls and passing them on? Did he really have to see people die again and again and again and telling them “Oops, you're dead, sorry buddy, let's go to the bright light, shall we?” 

Christ, how come the afterlife sucked more than his actual life had?

He turned his gaze to Julia, who did not seem to know how to react. She stood there, frozen, eyes bulging out. Then, a tiny, “Really?”

Sam's smile lit up the room. “Yeah, girl! You're ready for an adventure? Or peaceful rest, you know, it's up to you,” they added with a non-committal gesture.

“Really?” she repeated, as if she couldn't quite believe it.

“Yup, your carriage awaits you, milady,” Sam said with a flourish, taking Stiles' file from her frozen hands, and after giving them a mad grin, she disappeared in the same bright light that brought Sam.

“You'd think they would invent or give us another mean of transportation, but no, we have to nearly be cooked to perfection every time.”

Stiles didn't answer, his eyes still fixed on the spot Julia used to be. Well, what now?

“I know it's all new and all for you, buddy, but you'll see, this is gonna be...interesting, to say the least. Sometimes fun, even,” Sam said with enthusiasm, juggling with two tablets and his file. Wait, two?

“This one's for you,” they said, offering him the brand new one, “Julia never got the hang of them, so she preferred the paper files. Drove her secretary completely mad.”

“Wait, so how does that work? Can I say no? Because I don't really want to do this. So far, this...this DDA bullshit has been a lot of sighing and eye rolling, so not the best first impression.”

“I know, she was tired, so she's gone now," they simply said, like it did not freak Stiles out. "But you're here and I'm going to explain your new job to you, and show you the ropes, my friend!”

Before Stiles could say anything, and with just enough time to clutch his tablet to his chest, Sam grabbed his shoulder and they were engulfed by the light.

Coughing, smoking and even perhaps roasting, he landed on the side of a road, stumbling for a few steps. He sat down, his back against a concrete wall, taking big gasps of air while he spotted Sam beside him checking themselves for potential flames.

He looked around, unsure of where he was. It seemed like a small town road, with an empty gas station and a dinner that sold “the best cinnamon apple pie of the state!” It was daylight, but there wasn't anyone in sight so far. Who could die here? A deer? Or maybe the guy at the register behind the desk in the store? Stiles peered through the dirty glass. He didn't look shady, but he could very much be shot down for the register's money. Or maybe the waitress, slipping on some puke? It did look like a good joint to cure a hangover.  
While he regained his composure, Sam took out Stiles' tablet and opened a file. They hummed pensively, before handing it to him.

“Take a look, tell me what you think.”

Stiles took the device carefully, wiping his hands on his jean. The file was surprisingly empty.

Emily Rottenberg, 31  
Car accident  
Status : pending

“I don't get it, Julia said she had all my thought and whatever in there. Why do I only have her name and age?” Stiles asked, thumbing the screen for a new page or file.

“That's because she ain't dead yet! Wouldn't be very ethical to read all about the lady when she's got no business with us, right?” Sam grinned, as if knowing those details for the last few minutes she was alive would change much. “There, you see, Status : pending. Not dead yet, but on her way. Deal is, you don't move from where you've been sent, alright? You'll be front row for the show, and she's gonna see you right away when she wakes. Could take some time though. You woke up what, three hours after you got shot?”

“I..I don't know,” Stiles said carefully. Was he gonna spend three hours looking at a corpse? Or will the body be taken away and he would only be looking at her mangled soul? Somehow, he couldn't decide what he liked the least. “How long does it usually take?”

“Well, you'll see on your watch, which, ah! I forgot to give you!” Sam reached in their pocket, pulling out the same watch he saw Julia wear. Stiles took it and wrapped it around his wrist.

Now he could see clearly the face and the signs on it. It was divided in five areas. At the top, instead of where twelve was supposed to be, NF was written in orange. Then there was the grey area he noticed earlier, which ended at two with TOD. He didn't need to be a genius to figure out what this one meant. Time of death. How wonderful. Then at four, DDA, which, okay he was familiar with that one, this must be the moment he announces to the poor unfortunate soul they croaked.

Stiles looked around, but nothing moved yet, and went back to his observation.

FPW, he knew. That was when he filled out the paperwork, with hopefully a completely calmed dear departed one near him. Then, and the last one on the dial, COS was at nine. For now, the hand was staying in the grey zone, at approximately 1 o'clock.

He looked up to Sam, who was watching him with a look Stiles couldn't identify. “Figured it out yet?”

“Well,” Stiles began, gathering his thought, “I don't know what NF means, or COS, but the rest is simple enough.”

“You're a smart one, aren't you?” Sam said proudly, moving their sunglasses to the top of their head, almost losing them in the complete chaos that was their hair. “NF just means New File, that's when your tablet pings with a new message, then you get beamed at the location. After you made sure you're not roasted, you wait.”

A car pulled up behind a pump, and a guy staggered out of his car, his cap hiding a greasy hair, and entered the shop.

Sam continued, unperturbed. “When the death happens, you wait until they wake up and you break it to them, usually nice and gently. They're often in shock, denial, anger and all that crap, real enough. Yeah, that's not only for the people left behind. Luckily, we don't feel pain, so even if they punch you, you're safe enough. Then Filling out the paperwork, you'll see, it's a straight forward form. Then when it's all good, someone collects the soul and get it out of your hands. Rinse and repeat. All good?”

"No, nothing's good, I'm dead and I still have a shitty job", Stiles thought, but before he could find a nice way to "thanks but no thanks" out of this, a second car slowed down and parked not far from him.

“Looks like she's here, it's my ride then, good luck!” Sam slapped him on the shoulder, took a few steps back and disappeared in a flash.

And just like that, he was alone. The slam of a car door shook Stiles back to the present. A woman got out, fumbling with her keys, engrossed in her bag. Stiles' tablet pinged, and the photo of the woman appeared on the screen, just beside her name.

“That's my dead one,” Stiles' brain helpfully supplied. He watched her walk, still searching something inside her bag, as she made he way to the store. He took a quick look at his watch. The hand had ominously moved forward TOD, but still not quite reaching it. The filthy guy came out of the store, a six pack in his hand and a cigarette stuck between his teeth and got in his car.

Then Stiles witnessed it like he was in a dream. 

The guy started up the car, the lady kept walking.  
The guy headed for the exit, the lady stopped, grumbling about her husband always stealing money from her wallet. She was just beside him now, he could see she the ring on her left hand and the way she looked exhausted. The guy in the car saw none of that, as he was reaching for something in the back seat, his foot still firmly on the gas pedal, the hand on the wheel following his movements. She looked up just in time to see the car coming in front of her. Stiles stepped on his instincts to help her and closed his eyes. He knew what he would see, the concrete wall was just behind her, and he did not need this in his after-life. Which, conveniently, appeared to be just what he'll be getting. The sudden deafening crash beside him still made him jump.

Still reluctant to see the damages done, he cast a quick glance at his watch. 

Unsurprisingly, the hand had struck TOD. 

He sat on the ground, ignoring the cries and screams of the cashier and the drunken stupor of the driver, took a deep breath, and looked up. But he didn't see her body broken in two, her legs and waist torn apart, no, what he saw was the delicate filamentous threads of light assembling themselves on the ground, one by one, looping and weaving around each other. Weightless in their quiet beauty, seeming so fragile next to the harsh reality a few feet away. After a while, they finally took the shape of Emily. And she lay there, ethereal, unaware of the agitation around her. He didn't know how long he sat there, waiting for her to wake up, staring at her, sometimes through her, but it was long enough for the ambulance and the police cars to leave, the only trace of what happened still clinging to the wall.

When she began to stir, Stiles sat up, but didn't move further. He took in the way her eyes fluttered, her hand going to her head before sliding down brusquely to her mid-section. He could hear her breath coming in short, confused huffs as she frowned. Only then did she open her eyes.  
They landed squarely on him.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” he answered with a small wave. “How are you feeling?”

He caught the hand of his watch strike DDA. Alright then.

“I'm....fine. Where am I? Is it...is it the gas station?” she asked, craning her neck to look around. “What happened?”

“What do you think happened?” He could do it. He could totally do it. Tell that poor woman she got crushed because of an asshole, then she'll realize she left her husband alone, maybe kids, she was going to start crying and screaming. What did Sam said? He couldn't feel the punches. Small favors.

“I don't...know. I was looking for my wallet, and then there was a car and...” she trailed, the end of her sentence lost on her lips. She looked around again. There, he thought. On the wall. Her eyes widened in horror and she covered her mouth with a shaking hand. 

His tablet pinged. He tried to remembered how Julia handed their meeting. Very poorly, in his opinion.

“Hello, I'm Stiles. I'm your DDA. That means Designated Death Announcer.” She stared at him. “I'm supposed to take care of you until someone comes to guide you somewhere else. I think.”

“Are you kidding me?” she asked, her face a mask of bewilderment.

Stiles squirmed. “No, I'm really here to make sure you understand you're dead.” Which, yeah, that wasn't the most tactful way of putting it, but nobody asked Stiles if he was a tactful person, which...no.

“Did you see what happened? Where you there when that guy smashed me into the wall?”

“Well, yeah, but I couldn't do any-”

“Oh my god, this is insane! Are you fucking kidding me,” she yelled, turning her face upward. “Is this a joke?”

“Well, I mean, no, I... Look, I haven't actually done this before, so could you please let me-”

“I'm in Hell, is that it? Is this fucking Hell?” she asked, cutting him off.

“Hey! I'd do my job a lot better if you'd stop screaming at me for one minute! I did not spend fuck knows how many hours waiting for you to wake up just for you to yell at my face, alright?”

She looked right at him before exhaling slowly.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” she apologized, taking deep breaths with her eyes closed. “It's just, I deal with abused kids, so you see, this isn't exactly easy to grab, that a kid like you just had to witness people die in the after-life. I'm sorry.”

“It's alright,” he said after a while, discreetly thumbing through her file. Husband, no kids. Several law suits from parents who didn't seem to appreciate the insinuations of abuse she reported. Hmm. Didn't say if she was right or not. “It's my first time doing it and I didn't exactly watch. I've seen enough shit during my life, you know.”

“Really?”

“Oh, you know,” Ping!, “the classics. Werewolves, hunters, giant lizards, disemboweled corpses and all that.”  
He ignored the disbelieving look she gave him and checked his tablet. A new file just appeared on the screen, containing nothing but a few lines. He cleared his throat, glancing at his watch. Time for paperwork then.

Soul #51391225/1815202051425187/1984/CA/NC

1\. Death occurred as predicted. Y/N Comments.  
2\. Subject accepted their fate calmly. °°°°°°  
3\. Soul intact. °°°°°° Comments.  
4\. Personal beliefs.  
5\. Comments.

That was it? He had taken opinion polls on Chipotle more thorough than that. Still, the sooner he was done, the sooner he could...do what, exactly? Was he going to stay here until he was called to another death scene? Could he move on his own? Was he condemned to jump from one death to an other until he became bitter and tired of everything like Julia? Was the after-life even worse than his fucking life had been?

“Hey, are you okay?”

“What?” he wanted to ask, but was stunned to discover he was out of breath.

“You look a little white, and I do realize a dead person saying this to a dead kid is ironic, alright,” Emily joked, half bended forward to look at his face. She glanced at his tablet. “Is that a poll? Come on, Stiles, I'll give you five stars if you take a deep breath right now.”

“I...okay, I'm okay.”

He closed his eyes, his grip on the tablet tight enough to leave marks on his hands, but he could feel himself slow down. “Alright.”  
“Alright, so what's the first question?” she asked, suddenly all business again.

“They want me to verify if the circumstances of the accident were as predicted.” He briefly looked up at the wall. “Check. Though not so much as a car accident than a wall accident.”

“Hey, the wall was there before, it's the car that did all the work!”

“You're taking this very calmly. It shouldn't freak me out, since it's now my job, but it kinda does. You do realize you're dead right?”

She smiled faintly.”Yeah, I do. It's just...freeing? Sometimes, I didn't feel like I was doing enough, and I couldn't just quit, I mean, that would be morbidly ironic but this job...” she paused then, running a hand through her hair, before letting out a small, teary, laugh. “It kind of ate my life, and all my relationships. My husband, my parents, my friends. I lived for the kids I took out of abusing environment, some of them still sent me cards, but day-to-day life? You just feel like there's no end, you know. Also, I had a bad shoulder and the pain's gone now, I count that as a win.”

Stiles nodded silently, “Yeah, I get it, I mean, I wish there were more people like you, but really, I wish your job didn't exist. I knew a kid who got beat up at home and, well nobody cried when his dad showed up torn apart by a giant lizard, you know.”

She squinted at him, surely trying to decide if he was making fun of her, but said nothing.

“Am I correct if I assume you took your passing quite calmly?”

“Completely. Didn't even hurt.”

“Well, you know I was shot, so it must have hurt a little but I don't remember, so it must be the same for you.”

“Well, your ASS is very efficient then!”

Stiles snorted, completing quickly the second line, before pausing. “Look, you're my first, hum...client, so I don't know if your soul's intact, but since you kind of look...eeeh...luminescent, I'm gonna say yes, unless you have an objection?”

“None. And I'm Jewish.”

Stiles filled out the remaining lines and sighed. “I guess this is it.”

Emily smiled. “Great! What now?”

“I...actually I don't know. I was told the next step depended on everyone beliefs, but then again I got stuck doing this, so you know, don't ask me,” he said as he glanced at his watch. “Huh. Shouldn't be long now. Good luck.”  
Just when she was about to reply, the same bright light that brought Sam engulfed her, and a second later she was gone. The hand of his watch that had struck COS was now in between this and New File.

A car passed by, its engine rumbling in the quiet early evening. 

Great, now what?


	2. It is not length of life, but depth of life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles keeps doing his job, meets a coworker, visits old friends, and has an impromptu therapy session.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, thank you for taking an interest in this fic, I hope the rest of it will keep you entertained. I'm doing my best in these troubled times.  
> Be careful, I've updated the tags, so take care of what you can or can't read.

"You think money grows on trees? Is that it? You think you can spend all day doing god knows what, forgot to pick up our son then come back and tell me you use all my money and I'll do nothing?"

Stiles stood frozen in the tiny kitchen. His second job has gone swimmingly, pun intended, and being at the beach had been a nice little bonus. Not being able to get sunburnt too. And even though he knew sand could not have gone anywhere on his person, Stiles could still feel tiny grains in some places he'd rather not have sand. He could _feel_ them, okay? But now, assessing the situation, sand was rapidly losing its first place on his list of priorities.

"Do? You don't do anything, that's the problem! You spend the whole day on the couch and still find a way to say you're too tired to pick up your son and then complain when I'm late? I work. Three. Jobs. Go find one and stop being a dead weight to this family," the woman screamed back, hair dishevelled and chin aimed high. 

The man in front of her slammed his hand on the countertop. She didn't flinch.

_Ping!_

Stiles took out his tablet, his eyes never really leaving the couple, as if he had some sort of awareness of violence ingrained in him. His dad never hit him, god no, but he saw how many times Scott flinched when Stiles' dad grounded him when they were younger, as if expecting more to follow. And let's not talk about the many phone calls his dad received weekly for domestic violence. Stiles knew how they could end.

He was here with them after all, in this tiny kitchen with water stains and mold mixing in a parody of christmas garland high on the walls and the trash vomiting up crushed beer cans.

He scanned the document quickly. Then did it again.

Mary Duncan, 31  
Domestic violence  
Status : pending

And just underneath.

Nathan Duncan, 35  
Domestic violence  
Status : pending

And again.

Abram Duncan, 4  
Domestic violence  
Status : pending

This was... This was even worse than he imagined. He looked around quickly, but the boy was nowhere to be found. Stiles hoped it stayed that way, and shifted his attention back toward the parents who were nowhere near done.

"Don't you talk to me like that! I deserve respect in my house and you should remember that before I make sure you never forget!" Nathan bellowed, his face contorted in a barely restrained rage.

"You'll get respect when you start deserving it! I have more respect for this clock because it's actually useful and it shows me how much time I've wasted on a deadbeat like you!" She tried to get past him, but he shoved her back against the cupboards. Stiles heard a sickening crack and she staggered a little, righting herself on the counter. "Don't you dare fucking touch me," she snarled, eyes darkening.

"You're my wife, or did you forget? I have all the rights to touch you as I want."

She spit in his face. Within a second he had her by the hair, head pulled back and ignoring her pained and furious gasps as she clawed uselessly at his arms.

"I warned you! I told you what would happen if you didn't stop, but did you listen? No, and now you're making me do this!" he growled, sending her flying into the wall before grabbing her hair again.

"Mommy?"

They all froze, including Stiles who didn't dare breathe. But the sight of the four year old boy clutching his binky must have done something for his mother because she slammed her elbow into her husband's groin and used the distraction to clamber away, her arms and hands scrambling madly, trying to grab something, anything, she could use to defend herself.

She wasn't fast enough. Stiles closed his eyes, but opened them again quickly. Only hearing was somewhat worse.

He saw her head slam against the fridge, and she crumbled on the floor. Her husband went to pick her up again but found himself with a knife sticking from his chest. He stared at it, as if it had no business being there, and made the mistake to take it out. The sound the knife made as it was removed from his chest almost had Stiles gagging. Nathan fell to his knees, a dumbfounded look on his face as he watched the dark stain on hist chest grow, and grow, and drip on the floor. When he finally collapsed, no one paid him no mind.

Stiles looked at his watch but the hand had stopped in the grey area. No one was dead yet.

"Daddy? Mommy?"

"Stay where you are darling! You stay right there, alright baby?" Mary said, barely holding onto consciousness.

Stiles looked at Abram, who still wasn't sure if he should come closer. His mother seemed to see the same thing because she pulled the most "you're-in-trouble-young-man" mother's face she could muster and simply said "Go back to your room, Abram. Now."

"Go back to your room, please, go back to your room...." Stiles whispered, his tablet creaking between his hands.

He took a step forward. And another. Stiles couldn't breathe. Nathan twitched.

Then, by what must have been a miracle on its own, Mary groaned herself back from almost unconsciousness and tried to sit up. Her hand slipped once on the blood that was pooling beside her before she managed to grab the kitchen counter. She looked up to see Abram already halfway in.

"Stop. Right. There."

This time, Abram listened.

_Ping!_

Stiles chanced a look.

Abram Duncan, 4  
Domestic violence  
Status : unaffiliated

Thank. Fucking. Christ.

_Ping!_

Stiles didn't even look. Probably Nathan's file. Good.

He glanced at his watch. What happened when several people died? The watch only had one hand, and it was still in the grey.

"Mommy?" Abram's lips trembled.

"Baby, I need you to do something for me, alright?" she said, as calmly as she could, while trying to get a better grip to lift herself up, smearing blood all over the cabinets. "I need you to go and get Ms. Annabelle, alright?"

"I thought you said I needed to go to my room?" Abram said, munching on his bunny's ear.

Mary groaned and closed her eyes, halfway up. Tried to smile. "I know baby, but I changed my mind. I need you to go to Ms. Annabelle right now."

Abram, still sucking on the fuzzy ear, slowly walked out of the kitchen, head turning in sync to keep looking at his mother who kept smiling at him. The smile dropped the second Abram was out of sight and she whimpered, a sob escaping her lips as her fingers tried to find purchase on the counter. She took a deep breath, her arms shaking wildly as she finally stood up, propped against the cabinet and deliberatly not looking down at her husband. The sound of the front door closing had her sag in relief.

Then, to Stiles' horror, Nathan's eyes opened and, as quick as lightning, his hand grabbed her ankle and pulled. Hard. Slipping on the blood gathering around her, she didn't have time to grab anything.

Stiles winced as the sound of her neck cracking against the counter echoed in the kitchen.

_Ping!_

He watched her soul form, lazily, thread by thread, getting brighter and brighter, and he wondered if one day he'll be used to this. If he'll just sit and wait, maybe install some apps on this thing. If he'll watch people die and kill each other, or themselves and not feel a damn thing anymore. If he'll stop asking for kids to go to their room and _live_ , or if he'll just consider that business as usual.  
Maybe DDA were only fired when they became dead inside as well. Or when they beat Sam's score at candy crush. But he'd been around enough blood bath to know that the one thing to be grateful for right now was his inability to smell anything. This quantity of blood would be like sucking a mouthful of pennies. He could almost feel the tingle on his tongue.

High-pitched screams brought him back to the task at hand. Right, the neighbour. Stiles sat on the chair near the window and waited, tracing shapes in the condensation at the bottom of the pane. Waited for him to finally die, waited for them to wake up, waited to see what the future would bring. Waited to see when he'll be rolling his eyes at fresh souls. And probably sighing. He counted the stains on the table and the cigarette butts in the ashtray, ignoring the paramedics fretting about Nathan. Who still. Hadn't. Died. If they managed to save him, Stiles would lose any hope of cosmic justice.

He stopped this line of thought and sat straight up. He'd received two notifications on his tablet. But Nathan wasn't dead yet. With fumbling hands, he opened the inbox and read. And read again.

"Hey."

Stiles let out a string of curses before releasing the death grip he had on his tablet, taking deep breaths to prevent his heart from jumping out of his throat, then turning to the man that just appeared out of nowhere beside him. Blond, perhaps six feet three, and a bored look on his face. Great, another Julia.

"Holy shit! Don't sneak up on people like this."

"You were litteraly told I was coming."

Stiles eyed the message once again. "This just says 'EIP : Soul #' and a fucking long ass number and 'Soul #' and another fucking long ass number 'are to be collected for external introspection. 'External introspection? Like that's not an oxymoron at all."

"Doesn't mean it's not true."

_Ping!_

"Oh great, he's finally dead. And look, the cops are here, let's make it a party!"

"Anyone told you you're awfully bitter for your age?"

"Anyone told you you don't answer questions very well?"

"I didn't hear a question."

"That was implied! Unlike the fact that you're a contradictory bastard, that was very clear from the beginning."

"Thank you."

"So, why are you here, exactly?"

"Finally, a question."

Stiles threw his hands in the air in exasperation."Oh, I'm so sorry for your debilitating affliction of conversation vampirism. Only being able to talk when asked a question must make life so difficult."

"It does, especially when I'm not asked any question." That asshole had the audacity to smirk.

"I asked you a question, you just chose to be a dick instead!"

"I'm Arthur. And I'm here because these two aren't going anywhere with you anytime soon. But you're welcome to try," he added with the cheapest, fakest smile on earth. Well, and beyond.

Arthur, not that Stiles had _asked_ him that, gestured to the two souls currently lying on the kitchen vinyl floor, before sighing and pushing his hair back.

"Are you telling me I'm not doing my job right?" Stiles asked, incredulous. That guy showed up out of nowhere, acted like a dick, and stood there, like a dick, just to tell Stiles he didn't do his job right when his job hasn't even started yet? _Like a dick_."They're not supposed to wake up now anyway!"

Arthur side-eyed him. "I know that. But you do know that a soul is supposed to be at peace to leave their place of death, right?"

"Yeah, I mean, the ones I've seen were all pretty chill about it so far," Stiles shrugged, ignoring the way Arthur eyebrows went up his face and kissed his hair. Ignoring eyebrows was definitely on Stiles' many talents list. Thanks Derek."This is my third job, you do know that, right?"

"Your third...? Did you piss off someone?"

Stiles was about to answer when Mary suddenly sat up.

"Abram? Abram?"

Eyes wide, she got up and nearly ran into Arthur who just stepped aside, a disinterested look on his face. She froze, staring up at the man who had almost a foot on her, and began screaming.

"Where is my son? What have you done to my son? Abram! Nathan!"

She stopped dead in her tracks, and lifted a hand to her mouth. "Nathan...Oh my god." She spun around, ignoring the two strange men in her kitchen and marched to her husband, stopping nearly above his soul, and watched him intently. Then she started kicking. And screaming.

"You useless piece of shit! You had to! You just had to! You couldn't get off your ass, no you had to have the last fucking word, you bastard! Wake up! I'm not done with you! I said wake up! That's all you're good for, isn't it? Lying there, waiting for someone to do the work for you. You spent more days on your back in the last fifteen years than a cheap prostitute!"

They both stood there, unmoving in the kitchen.

"Ah, so that's why you're here," Stiles said, ever the observant one, while Mary cursed her husband, a British accent slipping out.

"I can't believe I wasted my life with you!"

"Yeah," Arthur answered, elongating the word in a sigh and crossing his arms, before pointing out something. "See her soul? Not looking like the 'pretty chill one' you had, right?"

It wasn't. Stiles had trouble finding anything in common with Emily or Lucas, the lifeguard. She wasn't a soul, she was a mass of tar and smoke inside the outline of a person. A moving, rolling cloud of ashes that showed no signs of calming down.

"Always a bad word about my mother when yours raised a selfish manchild with delusions of grandeur!"

Stiles hummed, still watching Mary ineffectively kick her husband for every word she yelled. This violence didn't affect him. Knowing they were both dead, that the kid was safe, kept him from feeling the urge to stop her. Besides, he kind of deserved that. Was Stiles supposed to judge the souls he collected? Probably not. Was he going to anyway? Unless some higher power came and smacked him on the nose, he didn't see the problem. It's not like he was killing them.

"Hey, I didn't see the police leave."

He thought for a moment that Arthur was going to ignore him. "I'm not a big fan of waiting," he said with a flick of the wrist, like that explained everything. And perhaps it did. Stiles was quickly understanding that his grasp on the after-life was superficial at best. Who thought it would be a good idea to throw him into the deep end of the pool and let him fend for himself? 

"Sam's ideas are the worst," Stiles muttered.

"Yeah they are. So, as fun it is to watch this, I'm bored out of my mind. Could you, perhaps, if it's not too much to ask, I don't know, try to do your job?"

Stiles watched as Mary was still kicking Nathan, albeit a tad slower than before, but the fire in her eyes was not extinguished and the storm clouds of ink in her soul were still rolling.

Right, piece of cake.

Stiles cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

~~

"So, how's it going fellas?" Sam asked, leaning against the window, their scalding clothes hissing against the humidity.

Stiles saw Arthur actually consider his answer. "They've been at it for a while now. I'm bored. As you can see, Junior here isn't exactly top notch material."

In front of them, Mary and Nathan had resumed their fight as if death had been just a pit stop.

"Congratulations, you're an asshole, you may get your prize at kissmyass.com." Stiles turned to Sam and shrugged. "I'm not sure even the most patient and understanding DDA in the world could have done anything," 

He'd tried talking to Mary and get her on her way before Nathan woke up, but he's underestimated the contempt and rage that had built inside her for years and years. And the fact that he opened his eyes when she was telling Stiles how she wished she had killed him earlier didn't help. And now the three of them watched as the couple fought, fists against jaws and elbows against ribs. Curses against rage, and insults against pride.

Sam sighed. "Yeah, Stiles is right though. We had their files for a while, but they avoided us for so long we knew it wouldn't be pretty when that finally happened. Crazy how they thought having a kid could save anything."

"Too bad for him, all he'll ever know is that Mommy and Daddy didn't love each other and left him alone to prove it," Arthur scoffed, his lip curling over the words.

"Even if some love remained, when has love kept people from killing each other?" Sam frowned at the grotesque scene in front of them, before clapping their hands together, a smile gracing their face. "So. Enough of that. Arthur, be a dear and take them away, all that black is depressing to watch, I'm getting seasick. Find them a good place to cool down, will you? Stiles? Come with me."

~~

“I miss Stiles."

Stiles stopped patting himself in shock. Not so deep down he knew Lydia loved him, cared about him and all those things that made his heart de-locate from his chest and relocate in his throat, but she never actually, verbally said it to him. Called him a moron, reckless and stupid over Derek, check. But her concern was never said out loud. In the end, death was as good of a place as anything to realize people cared about you.

Speaking of. Lydia's room.

Stiles slowly spun around, noticing the clothes piled on the desk chair, the shoes haphazardly thrown on the floor and the papers on the bed. Oh god, he really was there. With them. Sam hadn't lied. Well he hoped Sam hadn't lied because if Stiles was there on business then...No. Sam. Hadn't. Lied.

Now the real question was, what the hell was he doing here? Don't get him wrong, Lydia and Allison were awesome, but maybe not his first choice of visitation? When Sam had turned to him after Arthur had collected Mary and Nathan, still screaming at each other, mind you, and took them somewhere unknown, he'd asked Stile if he wanted to visit home. And of fucking course Stiles said yes, please, take me to my father. Instead he arrived here. In Lydia's bedroom. Which...wasn't bad per se, just..yeah.

“Me too,” Allison whispered, curled on herself on the bed. “He'd know how to solve this.”

“Sure he would,” Lydia huffed with trembling lips, “I can already see his brilliant plan of 'getting nosey and gallivanting through the forest alone at night' going so well. Like he's invincible. Like nothing could ever happen to him. Like our lives aren't stupidly dangerous!”

Allison pressed her lips together, corners turned down, and offered her hand to Lydia.

"We should have been there."

Lydia swallowed, twice, and scoffed. "Like that would have done anything. That idiot would-" She cut herself, pressing her free hand against her lips. Allison tightened her grip on her other hand.

"Yeah, Derek. I know."

"Yeah," Lydia murmured, a few moments later, "we should have."

Silence stretched out for a few minutes, neither of them speaking while Stiles' heart broke quietly. He hadn't thought of Lydia and Allison when he woke up, other than to wished they had been there, too. He didn't even asked himself what the would feel when they heard what happened. He could honestly say that that guilt blindsided him. Of course they couldn't have done anything! How could they have done anything when he was five feet away from the guy and never even saw the gun? All he saw was a pissed off hunter pointing at Derek and his instinct did the rest. How could Allison, who usually liked to be perched on some catwalk, could have done anything other that watch him die with her own two eyes? How could Lydia? This was pointless guilt and Stiles hated seeing them like this.

And sweet, sweet god, did _everyone_ know about his giant crush on Derek?

Stiles shook his head and went back to the conversation. Why would he get nosey? What was the problem? Were the hunters still here? If so, Stiles would be very disappointed and would make sure they knew when he met his friends again. He felt an imaginary cold sweat running down his back. Would he be the one to take care of his friends after they died? Could he watch them be killed knowing there was nothing he could do? Would he have to say hello and goodbye in quick succession? Hopefully, that wasn't in the near future.

“I've always felt smarter next to him," Lydia whispered, as if to say it to herself.

He blinked. Okay, rude. 

Lydia got up and continued before Stiles had the time to feel truly offended. “He always thought outside the box, and sure, most of his plans relied on a good dose of luck and wishful thinking, but sometimes, sometimes they were brilliant.”

Stiles felt warmth spread in his ribcage. Totally hypothetical warmth, obviously, but it still counted as something. He watched Lydia at her desk, the way her hair wasn't as neat as it used to be, her make-up smudged on the corner of her eyes and the way her eyes jumped from right to left with no respite. He was so close to her he could almost smell her perfume. Something floral.

“Are you channeling your inner Stiles?”

They both turned to the sound of Allison's voice, perfect symmetry, which meant less than graceful on Lydia's part, who just raised an eyebrow in question.

“You're playing with your pen and your eyes are alive,” she pointed out with a nod.

Lydia slowly cast her eyes downwards on her hand holding the pen but didn't say a word. Stiles could practically see the gears turning in her head as she cocked it slightly to the side, listening. She was a banshee, she probably could feel him in the room with them. Worth a try.

“Hum, hi?” He waved.

She only silenced Allison when she tried to speak but showed no sign of hearing him.

“Hey, Lydia, long time no see. I have a question. When I woke up and realized I was dead, I didn't see any blood on the floor. So you tell me, why didn't those hunters die painfully? You know, a good evisceration or decapitation would have done wonders for my self esteem. But no! What? You let them go, like, we know you're sorry for shooting Stiles, no harm no foul? He actually killed himself, if we want to be precise?”

No, he was not still bitter about that, why do you ask?

"Lydia?"

Lydia's face remained a mask of concentration the whole time, until a ripple of agony sliced through it.

“No. No. No no, I don't want to,” Lydia said, gritting her teeth, disbelieving. Her hands shot up to her ears as Allison rushed to her side.

“Lydia? What's wrong? What did you hear?”

But Lydia was still clutching her ears, fingers digging in her hair, gripping fiercely the strands caught between them. Allison tried to lift her head but Lydia kept shaking it, her jaw clenched shut, small whines still slipping between her teeth. It hurt, seeing her like this. She had to suffer so much pain for a questionnable gift, pain that cut deep into her soul and not for the first time, Stiles wondered how long she would be able bear it. He stepped closer, kneeling beside her, beside Allison, who was desperately trying to calm her as she dried her tears. Lydia's head snapped up, her eyes drilling into Stiles'. 

For a second, he was breathless. He felt alive. He didn't care about the way her eyes welled up with tears and horror, she could see him! She could see him! Stiles opened his mouth to say something, anything, but that's when she clutched at Allison's arm and _screamed_.

Then the room went black.

Well, that went well.

~~

"But I don't get it," Stiles argued, lounging on his last client's couch, his legs propped on the opposite armrest. "Lydia's so smart, but she still thinks she could have done something to save me."

He had collected three souls since that time in Lydia's bedroom. Colette had been the sweetest old lady, gone quietly in her sleep at 94, which, way to go grandma, share your secret. Stiles remembered the way she had smiled at him, so warm, so full of life still.

"My, don't you look handsome?" Colette had said, getting up. "Oh, it's the first time in years getting out of bed doesn't take half of my morning!"

"Good morning, ma'am."

"Nonsense, nothing like that between us, call me Colette, or Lettie. You remind me of my grandson, you know, with that haircut and that plaid."

She then started on every visit her grandson had paid her, every biscuit he had eaten at her tiny kitchen table while Stiles made the appropriate sounds and filled out his paperwork.

"Your generation, always working, and working on those computers, even in death! The state of things, it's all going down, I'm telling you, young man, I'm happy to go."

"Well, that makes my job so much easier, so are we ready to go?"

"Do you think I'll have some good company where I go?" she'd asked, suddenly unsure, hands busy smoothing the wrinkles made during the night, "Oh, I'm so embarrassed to be seen in my nightgown, what if we meet someone I know? Won't I be cold? Will I see my husband? The poor dear passed away thirteen years ago. Too stubborn to go see a doctor. His father's side, that. Too proud. I hope he regretted leaving me like that, I'll have some words with him, mark my word!"

~~

Ah, Colette had been a delight to reap. He ought to try her blanquette recipe one day. 

Wait. Never mind.

A loud crunch brought him back to the present.

"Don't you think it's perfectly normal for her to feel that? She wasn't there at all," Sam said, perched on a bookcase, snacking on some Doritos they'd found earlier. Yeah, Sam could eat. And drink. Stiles had not been happy to learn that particular fact, especially when all Sam said was "Seniority perks! I have a lot more mojo than you!" with that blinding smile of theirs. He missed eating, okay? "She doesn't know she did everything she could so she feels...unsettled."

"But she and Allison could ask Derek or Scott! I wasn't the only one there."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah, I'm sure it'd be a fun conversation, yeah, just ask the two who blame themselves the most if Lydia, who wasn't even there, could have done something they couldn't. I can see that going so well."

Stiles groaned and kicked the armrest in frustration. It didn't hurt. His frustration grew. "That's so stupid, oh my god."

"Yeah, almost as stupid as someone blaming himself for his mother's death when it was due to a medical condition."

Stiles mouth fell open in outrage, head a little spinning at the sudden change of topic.

"That's so not the same thing! She was scared of me! I was doing something wrong, or I must have been a little creepy monster child at that time. She was terrified!"

"Doesn't mean you killed her."

The stared at each other, willing the other to break. Stiles bit the inside of his cheek, refusing to back down, a scowl deeply in place. Sam kept their face open, as patient as the sea carving away the cliff-side, knowing it'll get there in time.

Stiles blinked first. 

"Doesn't mean it helped either."

Sam hummed, but let the subject drop, peering inside the bag in their hand before emptying it directly in their mouth.

Stiles was left chewing his bottom lip in a pout, head propped up on a dark grey cushion. The whole room was a nuanced palette of greys. Dark grey couch, anthracite curtains, grey cushion, light grey walls, smoky glass table, grey grey grey. No wonder the guy killed himself. 

Stiles hesitated.

"Hey so, that guy, Philip, he was just curious, but do you really believe he killed himself? Like, do you think he wanted to die?"

Sam seemed to think about it. "He didn't want to die, but he knew the risks, and was willing to take a chance on his life for it."

Stiles sat up, elbows digging into his knees. "Yeah, but, that's stupid. He didn't die because of his allergies, he died because he cracked his head on the bathtub!"

"And he rushed to the bathroom, barely breathing, barely seeing, and completely panicked, because..." Sam motioned him to continue. 

Stiles sighed. "...Because he wanted to try a strawberry cheesecake his friends recommended when he knew he was allergic to strawberries." He snorted. "Do you know the first thing he said to me when he woke up? 'Strawberries don't even taste that good'. I would have been pissed!"

"Well, good thing you're good at your job, then. Or you would have had to call Arthur."

"Fuck that guy, he's as agreeable as the souls he takes."

Sam fixed him with a Look. "I'd be careful about what you say, if I were you. He doesn't have the most pleasant job, but it is still as important as yours."

"I'm not saying his job isn't important, I'm saying an asshole is doing it."

"Still, he's been doing this for a while, so it might have taken its toll. I'll have to see if we need to do something about it."

They then started typing, their tablet chiming occasionally while Stiles lay back down, vaguely thanking his luck he wasn't the one charting off unsettled souls to...where? When he asked, Sam didn't even bother lifting their head before answering.

"Purgatory. Obviously."

"What's it like?"

"Imagine a mix between a yoga salon, an aquatic center and a ninja warrior obstacle course."

... _What?_

Sam must have felt the expression on his face on a cosmic level because they snorted, still not looking up. "It's working, we thought about it, don't worry. Hey, what would you say about Estelle's case?"

Stiles' mediocre mood took a turn for the worse. Estelle. He's tried really hard not to think about her once he'd let her go. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel her, nestled comfortably in his arms, cooing softly and looking up at him with...Stiles shook his head. "Why?"

"File's incomplete, obviously. Babies are always hard." That last part didn't seem to be entirely related to the file subject, but Stiles didn't take the bait. 

"She was fine when she left. Settled."

Sam graced him with a dubious look, but mercifully let it go. Stiles wasn't sure it was the end of that conversation though.

Estelle had been his fifth job and the hardest so far.

How long would he be able to say that?


	3. Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb of me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello! So, it took me a little longer than I anticipated to post this one because I am an idiot and I don't know basic numbers. I was happily writing when I noticed I was on chapter 4 while chapter 3 waited patiently, with only 500 words. Also, we're once again on lockdown and I have so much work, it's not even funny.  
> I...am not particularly happy with this one, it was fighting me, but eh, here we go.

"That's the stupidest way to die."

Stiles didn't look up from his tablet, not wanting Bartholomew to know he agreed, and tried to keep his smirk hidden.

"Like, my life was already a joke, but this...this...this," he stuttered, unable to articulate the extent of the embarrassment his death brought him. "You know what? Right now I'm glad I died because waking up from this would make me deal with the consequences and...and... Oh my god."

Stiles hummed while fiddling with his tablet, checking boxes and desperately not thinking about the dead body in the tiny living room.

"No but seriously, look at me!" Bartholomew whined, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his body on his knees, still hanging at an angle, the curtains wrapped tightly around his throat. "They're going to find me like this!"

Stiles couldn't suppress a snort this time. "Yeah I saw you, I was there. I mean, it wasn't on purpose, at least?" His file did say accident. He should be proud. That may not be what the people finding him will think though. 

Bart's mouth opened in shock. "They're going to think... No, no they know I couldn't! And why like this?"

Stiles nodded absent-mindedly, it wouldn't be the easiest way to do it for sure. But then again, people found creative ways to die all the time. Bart began to walk around his head between his hands, his soul vaguely grey. He tried kicking the chair but his foot passed through and let out a frustrated growl.

"My life hasn't even started yet! This is so unfair!"

"Dude, your life started the moment your mom pushed your big ass head out of her," Stiles shrugged. "Just because it didn't go as fast as you'd like doesn't mean it doesn't count. You did stuff, acted in plays," Stiles quickly checked his tablet, "loved your mom, loved your dog her whole life. I bet that counted to them."

Bart only grunted in response. Ungrateful little brat.

When Stiles had appeared in his living room, his underwear burning tender parts of him like a hot coal, Bart had been walking around, reading out loud his part for a potential new play. He was an aspiring actor trying again and again to have his big break that would just not come. It was... an interesting take on the role, that was for sure. His file had said "accident" and Stiles had looked around the room, trying to identify the most likely way he could die.  
From another broken neck to impaled on his vase while falling from the ladder trying to fix his ceiling light, with choking on his own spit snug in the middle, Stiles had a couple of ideas. Maybe paper cut? Alright he was grasping.

But strangled by his curtain used as cape while standing on a chair that overbalanced while reciting a soliloque had not been Stiles' first choice. Hilarious, yes, but not his first choice. Ah, what do you know, Death does find a way. 

"Can you... Can you at least put the curtains away?" He still wouldn't look at his body, a disgusted grimace deforming his face.

"Sorry no can do. But what did you use for those curtains? That's some sturdy stuff."

Bart threw him a betrayed look. "Why do you care? You're dead too!"

"Ouch, dude, I'm just saying it was some good work."

"I know, I'm sorry, It's just..." Bart sighed and, for the first time, looked something other than horrified, disgusted and frustrated. "I hope my mom doesn't find me like this. She believed in me, okay? Came to every play and all."

"I get it. It sucks." Then, because he was an instigator at heart, he added, "Especially because they'll probably think auto-erotic asphyxiation, just so you know."

Aaaaand they were back to horrified. Stiles was so going to Hell after getting fired.

"But...what. No, but I was...Oh my god. Oh my god I don't want to be here anymore, please send me somewhere I don't have to see that." And just like that, his soul began to glow.

"Well, since you asked nicely..." Stiles said, glancing at his watch, and, in a feat of total coincidence and accidental badass luck he would never be able to reproduce in his after-life, snapped his fingers and Bartholomew vanished in a burst of light.

Making fun of a soul enough to send him to the after-life. Huh. Maybe he'd found his style.

He really was getting the hang of this. Pun intended.

~~

He was so not getting the hang of this. 

Actually Stiles was regretting every decision that brought him here. He wasn't burning, for once, which was ironic or maybe a celestial sign. The two-stories house in front of him wasn't so lucky. It was a quiet night, if you ignored the flames trying their best to eat the kitchen curtains, quiet neighborhood, nice garden. All in all, if their house wasn't on the edge of complete destruction, he'd say that it was a nice little spot for a family to settle down. He took a deep breath and banish all thoughts of another house burning from his mind. It wouldn't work, but it was the thought that counted.

"He's here! Look Gabe, the new one's here!"

Stiles' eyebrows went up as he turned to look at the person that seemed far too excited to meet him. She was almost jumping in place, her tiny hand tapping frantically on the arm of a much older and much bigger man. She smiled brightly when Stiles noticed them. Well, time for his first co-op job.

"Come on Gabe, come on, let's say hi!" She grabbed him by the arm and pulled, and it was clear to even Stiles that "Gabe" went willingly, albeit slower than she would have liked, because she didn't look like she could move him if he didn't want to. "Hi! I'm Alice! It's so nice to meet you!"

Stiles shook the hand she offered him, still unsure of the situation. She was the first DDA or affiliated soul collector that was so...upbeat. "Gabe" on the other hand, look appropriately serene and calm.

"I'm Stiles. How do you know me?"

"Oh Arthur mentioned you! He said you were fun to mess with, which you know, is a reeeeaally good compliment from him, so I just knew I had to meet you!" She smiled like she was trying to outshine the slowly burning house behind her.

"I'm Gabe."

A man of many words, then. Stiles knew how to work with that, he had more experience than dealing with...her. He took stock of the place for the first time, and tried not to look so surprised. The fire had just started but it looked like it was going to be bad. House fires were deadly, he knew that, he really did. Didn't mean that the six other DDA didn't take him by surprise. Some were standing, looking at the house as if watching a mildly interesting documentary, others were sprawled on the ground, talking quietly, not paying attention to their colleagues. One was just sitting on the sidewalk, throwing little rocks at the ones too quiet for her taste, garnering some annoyed looks to which she responded with a spectacular failed innocent face.

Stiles returned his attention to the brown girl practically vibrating in front of him, her hair bouncing up and down as she rocked on the ball of her feet.

"Yeah, not a big fan of Arthur, actually."

She flapped her hand in front of her, "Pfff. Please, no one is! He's so depressing. But I heard you replaced Julia, I hope she got somewhere nice, she was really fun at first. But then she started, like, feeling things. Like hearing stuff. That was so weird, I'm not surprised they let her go, you can't exactly do this job if you feel things. Imagine! We'd be choking and burning right now!"

Okay, Stiles was starting to feel a little unsettled. She was deranged. Gabe, who must be used to her, tried to explain, his deep voice calming despite the growing anxiety Stiles felt.

"Don't worry, she just loves her job. She's been doing that a long time. Tell him about your favorite job, Alice."

"Oh my god! So, I arrived in the middle of a stadium, no one in sight, and I asked myself, you know, who would die here? It's always so exciting, I never look at my file before, I love guessing! Do you do that too? Because when you have to wait for soooo long you need a little game, you know, and then I turned around and, you'll never believe this, a stage! And big lights! So much potential for accidents!..."

The ongoing flow of words kept Stiles from answering and he nodded as she told them of the tragedy of the rock show, being trampled to death, and Gabe, apparently content to just let the words wash over him, stood there quietly.

"And then he woke up immediately, which is always so weird you know, having two of them, and we stayed for the whole show. It was so good! I really miss music, you know, big shows like these are one of the best things of this century!"

Stiles stayed silent for a few seconds, trying to figure out if she was really done or not. "...Yeah, it must have been...nice. Hey, question, how long have you been doing this job?"

She seemed to need to think about it. "I mean, how long ago was the civil war? Gabe and I died together! And we got to stay together!" She grabbed Gabe's midsection, as high as she could reasonably go, and gave him a side hug.

Stiles felt as if the world suddenly tilted a little bit to the left. A hundred and sixty years of collecting souls. He felt vaguely nauseated just thinking about it. Gabe's hand fell heavily on his shoulder, squeezing just enough to bring him back to the present.

"If it's not what you're meant to do, you won't be doing it, don't worry." And that....that was almost reassuring.

"So," Stiles cleared his throat and pointed at the house,"so what happened here?"

"Oh, some guy just decided to burn a house today and left." Oh yeah, that's right, people sucked.

"Really? I thought arsonists liked to watch their work." 

Stiles turned on his heels and looked around. As he walked slowly down the road, a dog started barking. And kept barking. Then the street started getting agitated. Lights were turned on, windows opened and insults were shouted, then _Oh my god_ 's were screamed. And just like that, half of the DDA disappeared. Huh. Guess some people were lucky tonight. Go dogs!

Where would he go? If he wanted to watch the house, what would be the perfect spot, a nice balance between the view and staying hidden? Ah. There. Hiding behind one of the houses facing the fire, a hooded figured stayed crouched, his eyes never leaving his work, a small, reverent smile on his face. Stiles scoffed, disgusted.

When he turned around, only the three of them remained. Well, some people got lucky in Life's big lottery tonight and they'd never even know it.

_Ping!_

Eliott Bowden, 15  
Asphyxiation  
Status : pending

Fifteen? Damn. He wasn't that much older when he died but Stiles had already felt old. He'd bet that kid wouldn't share the feeling.  
He saw Gabe reach for his tablet when Alice purposefully ignored hers. Gabe sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly as Alice patted his arm without really paying attention, a wide smile still on her lips.

"You alright man?" Stiles asked, coming closer and watching as neighbors and spectators grouped themselves in front of the house. Morbid curiosity was something Stiles could usually understand, but the house on fire hit a little too close to home for him to be truly sympathetic.

Gabe just shrugged. "She's two."

And, yeah. Alright.

Stiles learned a lot as they waited for their souls. One, houses burned so, so fast. Two, Alice freaked him the fuck out. Three, firefighters kicked some serious ass in response time. Four, hearing some random guy state that he would "absolutely jump from the window with his baby in his arms if it came to it" while the father struggled to find his way out of the house, made Stiles wish he was still alive just so he could punch him in the face.

Gabe stepped beside him, his presence somehow calming Stiles' nerves. This man was made of magic.

"Don't blame them, it's only human. That's why you slow down in front of accidents. Your brain asks itself 'what would I do to survive this? How can I make it better if I'm in this situation? Will I be able to sustain the pain? How would I react? Would I be brave?'" Gabe said, turning to look at Stiles, his deep brown eyes carrying more sympathy for the people here than Stiles had ever felt in his life. "People are meant to empathize, that's how we evolve and survive. Be better. Do better. But before anything else, help." He then pointed at the father who had found his way out of the house, carrying a little girl curled inside a wet towel that was smoking. The paramedics ran, but before the could reach the both of them, the father put the girl down gently and ran back inside the house, ignoring the shouts of the firemen.

"Oooooh, a hero, I love those! I bet I have the dad!" Alice squealed, clapping her hands delightedly, smiling as the father rushed back inside, his arms in front of his face. Screams could be heard from the second floor, right before the house made a loud creaking sound.

Stiles took a step away from her.

He understood that DDA needed to enjoy their job, especially for someone who'd been doing as long as they had, but Stiles couldn't help but resent the fact that one day, maybe, some dead kid was going to watch his dad respond to a situation and be this ecstatic as he died. His chest contracted painfully. No, someone like Gabe would be nice for his dad. Reassuring, calming presence. Not... whatever the fuck she was.

Stiles took another step away from her, ignoring the knowing yet understanding look Gabe gave him. He probably was used to it by now.

He must have zoned out for some time because after what appeared to be only a second, the dad stumbled back out with a toddler in his arms, his wife cradling a terrified dog in hers. As they coughed and cried, they heard a window break, and a hand fell limply out.

"Eliott? Oh my god Eliott!" the mother cried out in horror, "I thought he was at Michael's! He was supposed to be at Michael's! Mitch! "

A teenager sneaking back in. Well, that was a plot twist on its own.

As the firefighters were made aware of the new development, that's when the husband collapsed, his daughter still in his arms. Half of them went to the father, the others went to restrain and help the wife who'd gone into hysterics.

"I'm so gonna win," Alice laughed and Stiles... Stiles tuned everything out, for his own good and let himself sit roughly on the ground.

He didn't acknowledge the cheerful _Ping!_ of Gabe's tablet, didn't want to know if it was the dad collapsing on top of her or the smoke or anything else, he just...sat. There. And breathed. He tried, he tried so hard not to think about another fire, another family, another creep watching with avid eyes.  
He ignored the sobs of the mom as she held her child in her arms. 

_Ping!_

Her last remaining child in her arms.

"Why am I last? It's obvious it's the dad! Come ooooon!" Alice whined, peaking in the ambulance. "I'm sure it's you mister! Come on, you killed your kid trying to save her, you probably want to die right now."

And...no.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Stiles stood up quickly, his stomach rolling, and walked right up to her. "What the fuck are you trying to do here? You don't think they lost enough? Don't you have any decency left after all these years? You're just nagging the poor humans trying to do their best by playing your stupid game."

Alice took a step forward, her chin raised in defiance. "Why do you care anyway? I'm not the one killing them, and they can't hear me, so I don't see how that's gonna make a difference to anyone. I mean other than you and your superiority complex."

"You -"

"Alice," Gabe cut in, his tone disapproving for the first time, deep wrinkles visible on his forehead, "that was uncalled for and absolutely beneath you."

Alice opened her mouth but seemed to think better of it and swallowed back her words. She gave Stiles a resentful look and stomped away from them, leaving him shaking. From what exactly, he couldn't tell. He looked back at Gabe, who was watching Alice sulk alone on the sidewalk, a considering frown digging around his eyes.

"Thank you."

Gabe sighed. "She may have been doing this for a long time, but she was only thirteen when she died. Between this job experience and the teenage years, she, ah, doesn't always show her best side."

"But she doesn't seem to care. At all. I mean," Stiles raked a hand through his hair, trying to come up with an explanation that would make sense as to why this bothered him so much, "you have to care at least a little for this job. She just... She's just like Julia."

That was it. She was the complete opposite of Julia yet still somehow on the fucked up part of the spectrum. Where Julia was apathetic and bored, Alice was selfish and callous. Julia couldn't have cared less if Stiles was okay or not, Alice would probably have told him all about her game of Eennie Meenie Miney Moe about which one was going to die while he choked on his own blood on the ground. Right now he kind of missed Julia.

"I just... It's not about some poor guy who fell from a ladder and broke his neck," Stiles began, the window where his soul waited for him still brightly lit, "it's someone who tried his best and died saving people and... I don't know, if you make fun of this, of all things, then what do you expect of humans? Nothing's left after that. What's the point."

"Bitterness is corrosive," Gabe hummed. "It'll eat everything if you let it."

"I'm not bitter."

"Yes, you are, but she is too." Stiles watched him as he considered his next words carefully. "We were almost safe, back then. Then some patriotic fanatic found us and thought we didn't deserve to live another day. Never asked himself why, just...didn't like what we looked like. Took it upon himself to make the world a better place. We never got our hero." 

It didn't excuse the shitty things she said, but Stiles chose to remain quiet.

Gabe sighed from deep in his chest, as if he could read his mind, and sat down, inviting Stiles to do the same. The firefighters were almost done with the flames, but he knew it was far from over. He glanced at his watch but the hand had barely moved away from TOD. This was going to be a long night.

~~

"Hey Gabe, why am I here? I mean, not in the philosophical sense, just... Eliott died up there, right?" Stiles asked after a while of sitting in silence. The flurry of activity around them made everything blurry.

"In events like these, we don't get sent to the body. Spending several hours in a burning house is not our idea of fun. Either the body and the soul will be brought out here, or the soul will come to you, don't worry. Besides, families tend to stick together after a tragedy. The living and the dead."

Stiles wondered about the poor DDAs assigned to the Hales. Talia must have been devastated and very pissed off. Dealing with an angry Alpha should be a group effort. Then again, the alpha power passed on at the time of death so maybe there weren't any dead alphas. He shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts and waited, ignoring the bright little soul shining in front of Gabe. She looked peaceful. He gritted his teeth and focused on the grass.

~~

"I know it's hard leaving them behind." Gabe's face was gentle as he took point, while Alice, still sulking, and Stiles stayed silent by his side. "But I want you to remember that they will always have a part of you with them. They'll feel abandoned at first, and angry, but they will find you again in the little things. Life is in the little things."

"I don't understand. Our house burned down, there's nothing left and my wife she's all alone! She's not going to find anything! It's all gone!"

Which, yeah, was a valid point. But despite the anger in Mitch's voice, his soul remained only cloudy. They had worked hard to get there, alright, and it hadn't been easy. First, the mystery of Eliott's presence at home had been solved. After a millions I love you's and I'm sorry's, his father finally asked him why he'd been at home and Stiles... Well Stiles never got to tell his dad, so he'd glared extra hard at Alice who may or may not have wanted to open her mouth, and he'd let them have their moment.

"I told Michael I'm... I'm gay dad, and he didn't take it very well. So I walked back home." Eliott's nerves had shone darkly through his muted soul.

"You.. He..." Mitch, barely able to talk around his anger, took his time to breath in, trying to calm himself. "I'm sorry I didn't realize, son, and I love you, but I hope you're no longer friend with him because I'm going to haunt his ass and there's nothing you can do about it."

Eliott had let out a wet laugh and had buried his face in his father's shoulder, his hand grasping fiercely at his back.

So that was nice.

Then there had been the father's guilt when he realized his baby hadn't make it. To Alice's defense, she was a very good DDA, at least when the souls could hear her. All polite smiles and reassuring tone, and it seemed to work for him, his soul calming almost instantly, especially when Gabe handed him Angela who didn't seem phased by dying. Stiles deliberately did not think about Estelle. Or Derek.

Stiles had a quiet moment with Eliott, the teenager still in shock, but grateful about not being alone, and feeling guilty about that. Stiles knew those feelings intimately. 

"Dude, the fire wasn't your fault. And you're not glad your dad and little sister died, you're glad they're with you during a tough time, that's nothing to be ashamed of. You're not a monster for thinking that, don't worry."  
It took a little patience, really iron-proofed arguments, and some emotionally manipulative ones, but Eliott's soul calmed down enough for Stiles to bring them back towards the others. The fact that his dad greeted him with a smile and an arm over his shoulder finally did the trick.

The three of them hugged for a while, and here they were, arguing about leaving their mom and wife behind. And if Stiles' gut was right, Mitch was also dead set on actually haunting his son's former friend. Go dad! 

"Oh come on Gabe, just do the thing already!" Alice rolled her eyes at him. "I know you want to, you big softy."

"The...thing?" Stiles asked. He wasn't a big fan of anything Alice had to say so the mysterious thing put him on edge.

"Oh wow, how come you don't know everything? That's new."

Stiles glared at her behind Gabe's back.

"Have you ever lost someone you held dear?" Gabe cut Stiles off before he could let her know exactly what he thought of her. When Eliott and Mitch nodded he continued. "And have you ever felt their presence?"

Eliott frowned, but Mitch nodded again, a little more hesitant than before. "My sister. She... She used to make quilts. When she died, I packed them all up. Couldn't look at them. Then, when Madison was born, I took one out and I swear I could feel her beside me, telling me it was about damn time." He choked out the last words but didn't hide when he wiped his tears with a shaking hand, smiling up at his son when he put an arm around him.

"Do you wish to leave anything behind?"

"We can?"

"We can try. There's no guarantee they will ever feel it, especially if they don't want to, or aren't ready. But we can try."

And just like that, they vanished in a burst of light, leaving a gobsmacked Stiles behind.

"Thanks guys, nice talking to you. Me? Oh no, I didn't want to know anyhting about that, don't worry. What? Yeah, sure leave with my soul, I don't care, you know, other than what the ever loving fuck, guys?"

Really? Really?

~~

After Gabe's little trick, not that Stiles knew much about it, Stiles had begged Sam to get him where he was, _begged_ them. He'd asked Sam about it, how it worked, who could do it, but the answers hadn't been satisfying. Stiles had felt like he was building an Ikea wardrobe reading the instruction in Swedish. "When you feel it's right", "If you really connect, you know", "oh and a lot of compassion", " Just like Gabe. Gabe's a good one. Be Gabe."

Great.

But here he was anyway. He expected the sight that greeted him, but his chest still felt heavy, like the air around him had transformed into murky water. It was quiet, in the way only places tragedy had touched could be. The curtains in the living room were drawn, the light from the street valiantly trying to sneak inside, but the room remained mostly dark, the air stale and oppressing. Stiles, barely breathing, ignored the hissing of his pants as flames died down to come closer to the couch. Yes, he knew what to expect. Didn't mean it didn't tear his heart out to see his father sitting on the couch, head bent down, his shaking hands gripping a wooden frame that was oh so familiar.

Stiles crouched down quietly in front of his father, his hand resting lightly on his father's knee. He knew his dad couldn't hear him, but it didn't feel right to speak too loud, not in the heavy silence that was his childhood home.

"It's okay dad," Stiles said softly, "it's going to be okay. I know it must be hard, and I hate leaving you, but I'm...I'm doing something right, okay? I'm... I'm helping people. I..." Stiles looked at the frame, at the picture of his mom and him in the middle of a hug attack, cozy on a picnic blanket at the park. Smiling. He hadn't been an affectionate kid growing up, so his mom had established 'hugs attack', where one of them would sneak up, hug the other and leave before they had time to hug back. If the hugger didn't leave in time they would suffer the ignominy of a full on hug. He loved that game, he loved sneaking up to his mom and dad, making them jump before darting away laughing. His mother loved it too, at first. A lot less when she started getting sick. She would panic and feel a lot more 'attacked' than 'hugged'. Stiles stopped after a while. "I'm sorry we couldn't stay. I'm so sorry, dad."

Stiles swallowed back a sob as his father put the frame down and cradled his head between his hands, breathing harshly.

"Sheriff."

They both jumped, but only Stiles got up. Standing in the corner of the dark living room was Peter, his air of nonchalance strangely muted as he took in the state of the room. He didn't mention the pile of dishes in the sink or the almost overflowing trash can that must offend his nose. Hell, even Stiles could smell that.

"Hale," his father croaked out, before clearing his throat. "What do you want." He sniffed, got up from the couch and walked to the kitchen, without even bothering to look at Peter, who had the unusual decency to ignore the tear tracks that his father wiped with a tired hand.

"I heard Argent and Argent junior couldn't find the hunters that...The hunters." 

Stiles paused at the gentle tone he used. Who would have thought? Peter Hale, showing consideration for the feelings of someone else. Quick, where were the confettis?

"Yeah, Argent called me, said that since they had no affiliations or link to other hunters and no ideas where they went or came from, they couldn't do much," his father said, almost between his teeth, before opening the fridge and looking at it, unmoving. "Most likely a pattern of trap, hit and flee. Rinse, repeat."

Huh. So Derek and Scott let the hunters get away. Well that was worse than he thought and Stiles was definitely feeling scorned right now.

Peter stepped in the kitchen, staying in the dark recess of the room, his arms crossed, his shoulder propped on the wall. His eyes caught the light from the fridge, making him appear like the predator he was.

"Ah," Peter sighed contentedly and smiled, his teeth glimmering too, now. "But I'm not a hunter, am I?"

His father froze. Stiles' lungs stopped working. 

"What are you saying, Hale?" 

"Me? Nothing more than the truth. My dear nephew is useless right now and I had a...debt toward Stiles, if you will. Now I don't."

Wait, did... Holy shit, did Peter just confessed to murdering the two hunters to his dad? The _Sheriff_? His dad whose face was doing something complicated. Was that guilt? Or maybe vindication? Fury? They were clashing against each other, too fast for Stiles to really see. Relief? Disgust? Gratefulness?  
Peter always knew how to push the right buttons to make everyone dance. He didn't know his father's buttons were part of that talent.

Peter waited, but his dad kept his eyes firmly on the inside of the fridge, not saying a word. Perhaps unable.

But what could his father say to that, anyway? To someone who admitted killing your son's killers? As a dad, would he be glad? And as a sheriff? Stiles had the distinctive impression he wasn't getting the finer details. Something was missing and kept him from understanding what was really happening here.  
Meanwhile, Peter was doing his best impression of the cat who got the canary while his father questioned his whole life. Peter _fucking_ Hale.

Stiles eyes kept bouncing between the two of them, waiting for...something. As the silence extended, so did Peter's smile. His father was still frozen solid, a hand on the door of the fridge. His eyes didn't seem to be looking at anything anymore.

"Good night, Sheriff." Peter finally said. Satisfaction was rolling off Peter's posture as he took a step back and disappeared in the night. Like the creeper he was.

His dad kept still a few moments more, before almost collapsing on himself. His head made a thud when it banged against the freezer. And again.

Stiles almost instinctually stepped in, but is dad stopped after a few hard hits, his jaw working silently around words he didn't say. A hoarse laugh finally escaped him.

"That's some friends you made, kid."

And Stiles.... Stiles had to agree with that.

Also, Peter was his new best friend now, he didn't make the rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like a liar, tagging this Derek/Stiles when Derek isn't even in it. He's coming, don't worry. Next chapter, promise. How? ...eh.


	4. Death is the fairest thing in the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello!
> 
> So as you can see we have a definite number of chapters. It may change but not by much.  
> I must warn you, my brain is liquid exhaustion right now, between work and moving and packing so I'm struggling with words. Sorry in advance.
> 
> Also, I don't know anything about hospitals or babies and anything that happens between them. Please keep a healthy dose of suspended disbelief while reading.

Stiles didn't know if he was supposed to be wandering on his own, popping back forth between his dad and Lydia. Well, he knew he probably wasn't, but nobody actually told him that so he could hypothetically, eventually, if it came to that, deny all knowledge of it. Besides, it wasn't as if it worked every time anyway. 

So far, Stiles had popped by his dad six times, in random locations, and every time, failed impressively at communicating with him. He seemed... functional. The deputies were on their best behaviour around him and even Old Bob had said how sorry he was about Stiles when he was brought in for public intoxication, the man's stench familiar in the corridors of the Sheriff department as he took his usual place for the night. At least the world hadn't stop turning.  
He'd seen Lydia four times, but with the added bonus of her getting the hell away from him in a matter of minutes. The record had been forty-five seconds, when she just gasped as soon as he arrived, called Scott, and hightailed from the bookstore.

After all the trouble he went through, that was just rude. It took a lot of energy and frankly, he wasn't enjoying the cooking show happening on his person every time he tried. No wonder Peter went crazy. He did manage to pop in the middle of a conversation between Scott and Lydia, Lydia for once too distracted by the phone to feel him close. It was the first time since the warehouse that Stiles had even heard from Scott and he tried not to let it get to him. And if he failed, nobody could see him cry anyway. He missed him, okay?

Standing right behind her, he let the now familiar view of her bedroom - he'd never popped in while she changed or did anything remotely private and he thanked every divine power for that - calm him while Lydia kept rearranging the stack of papers on her desk, a nervous kind of energy pouring off of her while she spoke.

"...same as always. And I know the timing is suspicious but I can't find anything to prove they're planning something nefarious, Scott."

"They showed up right after the hunters left, Lydia!"

"I know that!" she snapped, then took a deep breath and continued, her tone a little mellower. "I know that, but they haven't made a move and they asked to speak to you."

"The hunters asked too. And after Stiles I can't..." his voice caught on Stiles' name, and Stiles tried not to feel guilty by the sudden surge of love he felt when Scott sounded so broken.

"I know."

They stayed quiet for a long time, Lydia still keeping busy at her desk, piles and piles of papers in front of her, her eyes scanning everything but her attention still firmly on the phone that had gone dark beside her. Her hands stopped moving when Scott spoke hesitantly after a small eternity of quiet grieving.

"Do you.... What do you think he'd do?"

Lydia sighed, rubbing her forehead, her hands shaking lightly, "I don't know. I truly don't know. His brain is not something I could ever hope to understand. But he'd want us to be safe. That was the whole point of it."

"I'll speak with Derek."

"How is he? I haven't heard from him."

"Not so good. It's Derek, I... I don't know. I gotta go, Lydia," Scott said, the sound of door closing, and Stiles could picture him changing his phone from one ear to the other, getting out his keys and... Yes! The sound of Scott's bike roared through the phone. "Thank you."

"Stay _safe_ , Scott."

Well. It looked business as usual in good old Beacon Hills, where nobody had any idea what was going on and Derek brooded alone. Also, Peter hightailing out of here to commit a merry double homicide made a lot more sense now. It might even be his way of trying to diminish the tension he could feel between the rest of the pack.

Stiles would definitely give him brownie point for trying.

“Holy mother of...!” Stiles groaned, while patting himself frantically, looking for any potential fires he may have forgotten. These things were sneaky. He was about to complain, loudly, when he took in his surroundings and stopped dead in his tracks.

Hospital.  
He was in a hospital. Again. And not any room in a hospital. There were a bed with the stirrups and the double set of what would soon be beeping machines. Fuck.

 _Ping!_ His own beeping machine chimed.

“Please don't be the baby, please don't be the baby, please don't be the baby” he muttered under his breath as he opened the file.

Laysa Amara, 26  
Giving birth  
Status : certain

Fuck. Was it better, he asked himself, that it wasn't the baby? Was it better that their mom will never know them? Was there a better choice, a better option in this case?

_Ping!_

Oh fuck no.

"If this is the baby's file I'm quitting! You hear me?” he yelled at no one. But no, the icon didn't look like the usual one. It looked a bit like a...stork?

“Hi. I'm Tala.”

Stiles absolutely did not yelp like a frightened yorkie, thank you very much. He may have jumped out of his skin but in a very, very manly way. 

“Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you,” she said with a small smile.

“It's okay, I mean, I'm already dead so you can't exactly scare me to death, but nice try! I'm Stiles.”

“Who were you yelling at?”

“No one in particular, maybe Sam, maybe the universe. Someone told me when I died that I was quite the complainer, so I'm living up to the rep, you know.”

“It's nice to see not everyone loses their sense of humour around here. I'm here for the baby, by the way, Birth division.”

“I'm here for the mom. Rough, isn't it?” Stiles said as the room started to fill. Wires and cords and electrodes were plugged and placed as Laysa was holding her very prominent belly and breathing deeply.

“What does you file say about her?” she asked calmly, watching the scene with a very professional focus.

“Certain death. Didn't know this could happen. They told me it was never sure even a second before it happened.”

She hummed, before answering. “It means our people spotted complications and the doctors did not. They're probably going to be taken by surprise. Check.”

Stiles pulled out his tablette and opened Laysa's file, which, for once, was complete.  
The name, age and death were all pretty straightforward and he skipped over most of her life. Sam had been right, it didn't feel comfortable reading about their life when they were still breathing and on their way to him. Something though, caught his attention.

“What's that?” he asked, showing the end of the file to Tala. “Never seen this logo before.”

“Oh boy,” she grimaced, before pulling out her own device. She tapped the screen a few times, it chimed in response and she groaned. “This is the traumatic division warning. It shows up when the weather guy who studied this case stamped it SINOA, so be warned that someone might show up before you're finished to help you deal with her if she's too much trouble.”

Just his luck, when he thought he was beginning to get the hang of things, people would throw emergencies and acronymes and another damn branch in his face, and what the hell did a weather guy have to do with anything? When he asked, she rolled her eyes and huffed good naturedly.

“It's the profiling section, kind of,” she explained while taking in the scene in front of them. The doctors and nurses were buzzing and someone said something about proper dilatation. Things were starting to heat up when she continued. “It's not a 100% accurate, you can't predict the reactions and the damages done, it's all emotional anyway and you've seen souls, they can't hide anything, so whatever they're feeling, it shows, plain and clear. It's not the same branch as the one that review the possibility of death, by the way.”

Stiles groaned when a woman came in, looking too worried to be a nurse. “That must be the wife, great. SINOA?”

Tala hummed. “Soul In Need Of Assistance. They happen when the body is giving out. Like when the death is prolonged, of the person is conflicted about it.”

“They're all conflicted about it! They usually don't want to die! Oh god, don't remind me of Jeremiah, I thought I was going to kill myself again. This guy was a dick. And like, a supposedly immortal dick, but give it up for hunters. If they need to kill something, they always find a way!” He gave her a very ironic thumbs up.

Tala just snorted. “They gave you a restricted file? How do you know about it all?”

“I had a pack, before. Werewolves. You?”

Tala didn't answer right away, focusing instead on the scene unfolding before them. The nurses were talking a bit louder, the machines beeping a bit quicker, a hand gripping an other a lot harder.They looked like they'd been at it for a while, and not for the first time, Stiles questionned his grasp on reality. She opened a file, one that looked a lot like his own less-thorough-than-a-Chipotle-poll and she looked at her watch before turning toward him and smiling a little. Then her eyes lost their focus, and she opened a recording app before speaking.

“The baby is coming for real this time. Beautiful boy, healthy, no comp-,” she stuttered, her face pinching in a far away frown. “Chances of complications.” 

His tablet pinged. 

Fuck no.

No. Huh-huh. No no no.

He opened the file anyway.

“Unnamed” Amara-Buchsbaum , 0h01min  
Strangulation/suffocation

Stiles held his breath before reading the next part, and released it in a grateful sigh.  
Status : Pending, low chances, <4%

They watched, and waited. Hidden in the corner of the busy room, Stiles felt like a vulture waiting patiently for his prey to die. Not killing it, not aiding it, just...waiting.

“I hate these kind of people.”

“Huh?”

Tala, who had stuffed her fists his her pockets, was hunched over and looked properly murderous. Her already dark eyes seemed to have taken on another level of depth as she glared at the doctor currently barking orders in the midst of chaos.

“Those assholes who don't know how to deal with their problems and endanger other people's lives because they don't think about anyone else.”

Stiles watched her muttering something that suspiciously sounded like a curse, a real one, mind you, before daring to ask. “What's going on? I just received the kid's file and you look two seconds away from wolfing out and taking his face off.”

That earned him a bitter smile from Tala. “Funny you should say that, because I was in a pack too, thought probably a bit different than yours.”

“I don't think my pack looked like any other pack out there. We were a mess. But we sorted it out. Well, most of the time. So?”

“So, our lovely doctor here is dealing with a divorce, an affair and possible lawsuit and twenty minutes before the call he was drinking in his car. Four fucking percent of chances that the kid will die because of an asshole who drinks on the job and may or may not be sober enough to make the right call.”

"Jesus, I should be here for him."

“Stiles, I wanted to ask you a favor,” she said after a while, getting closer to the bed where the mother seemed to be having difficulty breathing, clenching her jaw through the pain. 

“Okay, sure, what can I do?” He glanced at his watch, noticing the hand advancing slowly toward TOD. Whatever had to happen wouldn't take long now.

“If, by any chance, you run into someone that looks a lot like me, or with the last name Soloman, can you tell them “Tala is still seeing”?”

“Still seeing?”

“Yeah, our pack wasn't as much of a pack as it was a clan, actually. We, hum, the humans in the clan would let spirits of wolves in on the full moon and run with everyone else, to appease them so they could move on. Not everybody could do it, but usually, the others had other... capacities.” 

Stiles moved out of the way when a nurse ran past him. They couldn't feel him, they would go right through, but it wasn't especially pleasant. He focused back on Tala. She was smiling at the mother's belly, tucking stray hair behind her ear. He cleared his throat.

“So, that thing you just did, with the baby, and the Halliwell vision, that was, what, a prediction? You weren't one who could run, were you ?”

She smiled at him over her shoulder. “No. I would give advice on the consequences of letting this or that wolf take over. Believe it or not, some are not looking for one last innocent run and more on the revenge side.”

“Oh believe me I know! We had our fare share of homicidal fanged nightmares.” He had to speak up to cover the sounds of everybody rushing about. The screams, the machines, the cries, the sobs. He shook his head. “Anything I should know about my future?”

She smiled again. “Like I said, if by any chance you run into someone named Soloman that looks a lot like me, say hi to Eli.”

He was about to ask for more details, like why was she so happy this Eli will soon die, or would she be able to visit when Stiles was there? (yes, sue him, he wanted to lay the foundations of his future visit to his dad or Derek or Scott, and if that meant doing favors now, he was ready) when Tala shut him up with only one flicker of her wrist. Her job had just began.

“Hey, baby boy,” she cooed tenderly. The baby didn't answer. Obviously. He didn't do anything for that matter. 

_Ping!_

Then.

Laysa woke up.

"What the hell?" Stiles muttered, sneaking a quick look at his watch. The hand had struck TOD. Laysa was really not dead.

"Where is my baby? Jenny? Where is she?" Laysa asked, sitting up on the bed. She stared at Stiles. "Who are you?"

"Ah, um, hi I'm Stiles," he said, before leaning toward Tala who was cradling the baby's head, her eyes cloudy and far far away. At last, he cried. 

"What. Is. Going. On?"

Tala breathed in deeply and her eyes focused back on Stiles for a brief second. She barely looked at him, typing something on her file, and then smiled "Told you, SINOA. She's not aware. I don't envy you. See ya!"

And just like that she was gone in a flash of light.

"Where is my baby? I want to see my baby!" Laysa demanded as she got off the bed.

Stiles bit back a gasp. There were two Laysas. The one on the bed, being swarmed by hands and nurses and doctors, looked terribly pale, while his Laysa looked more...tempestuous.  
She was a rolling mess of black clouds of smoke and ashes that kept shifting in her form, never stopping, always moving in waves darker and darker still.

"Give me my baby!" Laysa screamed at the nurse who was drying him, not caring that her body was being transported elsewhere, a swarm of nurses buzzing around her. She didn't even look up. "I said give me my baby! NOW!" And before Stiles could stop her, she reached out for her.

Stiles watched as her hand went right through her shoulder, never meeting any resistance. Laysa gasped as she took a step back, clutching her hand to her chest. The storm inside of her kicked up some more.

His watch told him to get a move on.

"Hi Laysa, I'm Stiles. I'm here to explain some things, and tell you what's going to happen now, okay?"

"I'm dead, aren't I?" she asked, her eyes indecipherable. They were full of tears but she looked calmer.

Stiles knew what a lie that was.

"Yes. Your baby is fine, the nurse is taking care of him. Did you pick the name before coming?"

Her eyes never left her wife as she cried on a chair, not even looking up as the nurse brought her baby to her.

"Laysa?"

"It's a boy. We have a baby boy."

"He's beautiful," Stiles said, his heart breaking quietly for them. He shifted to let a nurse walk past him, while Laysa couldn't seem to give a damn people were walking through her.

"Gabriel. We wanted to call him Gabriel."

Stiles watched as the storm inside her stilled into a buzzing grey, like static on a old television post. He watched as Jenny sobbed holding her baby, rocking them both back and forth. He watched as Laysa kneeled in front of them and cried with them, caressing her baby's head, not caring if her hand went through it, whispering her love between her ragged breaths.

He watched them and couldn't help himself wondering who was there with him in that hospital room when his mom died all those years ago, who watched him scream and cry and kick the nurses. Who bore witness to his pain. Who took him mom away.

~~

“I'm on the set of a horror movie” was the first thing that popped into Stiles' mind as he patted himself. The place was definitely shady as hell, judging by the whole leaking pipes-no light-rats combo. Could people have the decency to die in nicer places, maybe? Who would die here anyway? Some kids trying to have fun by sneaking into an old factory who didn't get their tetanus shot? Or maybe impaled on a broken pipe?  
Stiles was in the middle of a pretty nasty thought about the peeling paint on the wall surely full with lead when a sob caught his ears. He turned, slowly. He had first thought he was alone, but now that he really looked, there, in the far corner he could make out something. A shape. It helped him by crawling out the shadows, the chain on its feet clinging softly.

Holy shit.

Stiles moved closer, dread and pity threatening to overwhelm him with every new details he took in. The purulent gashes where former skin met metal, the tainted mattress with a hole in the middle that looked torn out, and the chain that linked the shape to the wall. It could be a women, Stiles thought. It was hard to see.

_Ping!_

Nadejda, 549  
Suicide  
Status : pending  
Restricted file : Leshy

Stiles' eyes jumped back a few times on her age. Really? He knew forest spirits could live longer than humans but wow. Also, his lore may be rusty but weren't leshys supposed to be male?  
Another sob brought his attention back to her. She looked so small and weak. Her emaciated face cut through the poor light, her cheeks taut and hollow as she sat up carefully against the wall. She closed her eyes and muttered something and a light breeze covered the stench of humidity and rust for a few seconds. It smelled of pine and moss and earth. She smiled faintly. A rat poked his nose out of a hole, sniffing the air for a few moments before zig-zagging slowly to Nadejda who greeted it with a frown.

“What's wrong?” She laid a hand on the ground for the rat to climb on, and placed her other one on top of it. The rat barely moved. “Little love?”

The rat's nose twitched a few times, slowly. 

“No... Please,” she whispered, her eyes already filled with unshed tears. But the rat didn't move again. She swallowed back another sob, her lips quivering, and placed the rat carefully on the dirty mattress, arranging the pitiful rag she had for a blanket around it.

Stiles tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he sat beside her, not caring about the state of the mattress or the smell from her clothes. Up close, she was so, so much worse. She barely looked like a leshy, with her moss dried up and her horns filed down to two pitiful stubs. Her raw, ashen skin was dry and peeling in some places and all that was left of her mushrooms was some intricate map of pale lines running up her left arm. He wondered how she could have made it so long, all alone, with a rat for sole company. And so fucking far away from a forest.

He stayed close to her while she muffled her cries in her arms, her chest heaving and her distress so poignant Stiles' fingers ached to touch her. She lifted her head, remnants of her tears running down her cheeks and she looked up, eyes empty.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't," she whispered, briefly touching her chest, before reaching for the back of her neck. Pulling delicately a pine cone tied to a strand of hair, she closed her eyes, murmured something Stiles couldn't understand, and with a pained grimace, tore the pine cone off.

Carefully, she placed it beside the nest she made for the rat. Her movements slow, so slow, as her skin grew greyer and greyer. Stiles could only witness as she lay down on the mattress, her head pillowed by her arm, her hand gently covering the two things she cared about the most as her ragged breaths echoed in the empty room. With one last painful gasp, she summoned a whisper of magic, the smell of rain in the forest now pungent, and she smiled around her last words.

"Forgive me."

Stiles didn't have time to introduce himself. The moment their eyes met, she threw herself at him, half laughing and half crying. 

While she sobbed in his arms, Stiles thumbed through her file, scanning briefly her life in the Scandinavian forests until he found what he was looking for. He cursed silently.

"At age 529, Nadejda was captured by hunters xxxxx and xxxxx and sold to xxxxx, owner of Superior Hardwood Inc., who brought her to the U.S.  
At age 538, former owner xxxx died and passed her on to his son in his will, under the term "asset of the factory quality"  
At age 546, owner xxxx jr was arrested and convicted. Existence unknown by others.  
Death : age 549"

While Stiles still cradled her soul in is arms, he couldn't help but rage at how fucking unfair that was. They probably went around kidnapping creatures and animals to sell, just to look you in the eyes and brag about their Code. He let his tablet vanish and held her tight. He couldn't do anything about them, but he could do right by her.

~~

“If you would just stop being so stubborn, we wouldn't be here!” Scott yelled, his face a weird mix of rage and a barely controlled shift.

“And if you stopped trusting everyone to do the right thing this wouldn't have happened!” Derek yelled back, a lot less controlled shift deforming his face. “You think everyone has always the best intentions, but you're wrong! People do horrible things just because they want and they can. It's that simple!”

Stiles stood between the two of them, unaware of the smoke escaping from his shirt, his elation at now being able to visit Scott crushed immediately by the sight in front of him. This wasn't right. They shouldn't fight like this. They should focus on the pack, on his dad who surely needed the support, not bickering like children about whose fault was it. Stiles had been informed that it was his own anyway. Still not bitter.  
The air of the McCall house was thick and tensed, waiting for something to break. Scott took a step back, a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

“You don't see it, do you? He stepped in front of a bullet for you. He would have done the same thing for me, don't think I don't know that, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same.” Scott's voice broke on the last word and Stiles yearned to touch him, hug him, tell him it wasn't so bad, see?  
The image of Lydia crying in his room flashed before his eyes. _Death doesn't happen to you, Lydia, it happens to everyone around you._

“To all the people left standing around at your funeral trying to figure out how they’re going to live the rest of their lives now without you in it,” he whispered quietly.  
That was his words, he remembered now. Did the funeral happen? How long has it been since Stiles died anyway? Not months, surely, and certainly not years. Then again, Time seemed shifty around these parts, so who knew? He counted quickly. Twenty. He'd collected twenty souls already.  
His thoughts were interrupted by Derek's voice.

“What? I don't...”

“Don't tell me you didn't know! You can't tell me this, you don't have the right to tell me this,” Scott said, anger slipping right back were it was, before vanishing as quickly at the sight of Derek's face. “You didn't, did you?”

“I...” Derek's mouth opened and closed several times before snapping shut. Stiles would have found it funny if it wasn't so heartbreaking.

"I'm... sorry," Scott said softly, an incongruous mix of pity and guilt in his eyes, before silently stepping out of the room, and letting Derek deal with the reality of what he just learned.

Stiles walked slowly toward him, his footsteps inaudible in the heavy silence of the room. But that was it, wasn't it? He didn't need to be silent. Stiles could jump and wave his arms and scream and scream as loud as he wanted to, nobody could hear him. Nobody could see him taking in Derek's face, so glad to see him alive yet crushed by what he just learned. What an idiot. How long did they waste? Would it have made it easier for Derek to know this before Stiles died? 

Or was Derek feeling unknowingly less abandoned this way?

Would it have been easier if they had their shot anyway? If they had known and tasted what they could have been together, being as happy as they could be, before losing it? Derek had lost so much already, could he have handled it as well? He wasn't alone, this time, Stiles thought, as he gave in and cupped Derek's cheek in his hand.

He shouldn't have.

“Your boy's pretty enough,” Sam's voice rang in the room from the top of the dresser where they sat. “Lovely soul, and nice face. How does it feel?”

Stiles held back a sob. It didn't feel like anything. His hand was firmly against Derek's face but Stiles couldn't feel anything. Not the scrap of the stubble he so often touched before, not the tickle of his hair on the tip of his fingers, not even the furnace heat Stiles oscillated between singing the praises of and cursing loudly. Not even that warmth that meant Derek was alive and well.

“I...I can't...” he choked on his words, struggling to get them out, now, right now, before he imploded with the simmering rage that was bubbling under his skin. Yet all he wanted to do was cry. “This is so fucking unfair, Sam.”

“It is.”

“It's not even the worst.”

“What is it then?”

Stiles stood right in front of Derek now, his hand still against his cheek as Derek was left alone by a grief-struck Scott. “He doesn't see me.”

“Nobody here sees you,” Sam replied. Their glasses were gone, as was their smile and they were dressed a lot smarter than usual, Stiles noticed absently. He shook his head.

“No, he doesn't see me. He always saw me. Looked at me right in the eyes, called me an idiot straight to my face, yelled at me, pinned me on the spot with only one look. He always seemed to know where I was and I didn't have to wait for him to look back whenever I needed his attention on something. He always saw me.”

Stiles clenched his teeth, urging his hand to drop, wishing he still had the illusion of Derek's skin on his. Right now all he could remember feeling was...nothing. No heat, no cold. Just one lukewarm universe for his senses to be dulled in.

“He stares right through me. Never happened before.”

Sam hummed. "He was lucky you know."

"Are you gonna give me the 'he was lucky to be loved by you' speech or something?" Stiles snorted wetly. His brain dimly registered this was the first time Stiles admitted how deep his feelings ran, even to himself.

Derek, his eyes still unfocused, sat on the couch slowly. Stiles couldn't stop looking at him, taking in everything he could. The bags under his eyes, the messy hair and the unshaved face told him Derek hadn't been taking care of himself. The devastation in his eyes told him it was the last thing on his mind anyway.

"No, he was lucky that day, with the fire I mean." Stiles' eyes snapped to theirs. "He was on the list of casualties, his sister Laura too. We had ten DDA dispatched for fourteen people. What a mess," they said, shaking their head.

"What happened?" Stiles' voice croaked mid-sentence but he didn't care. 

Sam walked toward him, then kneeled in front of Derek. Stiles bit down the urge to shove them away.

"Your father."

"What?"

"Your father happened."

"I don't understand."

"The day of the fire, a deputy had stopped a speeding car downtown. The driver was clearly drunk and as he got out of the car, he pushed the deputy in the middle of the road, right in front of traffic. A car stopped barely a foot away from him. He took care of the drunk driver, talked to the driver of the other car and went back to the police station."

Sam lifted a hand, tracing delicately the angular shape of Derek's jaw hidden beneath a soon-to-be thick beard, before climbing up to his nose, brushing against the corner of his mouth on the way. The touch felt oddly intimate and Stiles squirmed, unsure about personal boundaries when one of the people was dead, invisible and immaterial and the other was alive, unaware, and unfeeling.  
Maybe he just didn't want someone else touching Derek.

"Derek and his sister were in the car just behind the one that almost hit your father. People from Predictions ran the numbers and visions. If traffic hadn't been interrupted, they would have made it at the house, most likely tried to save their family and died in the fire. The only survivor would have been the younger sister, still in the bus. And Peter. Maybe. Made quite a mess coming back to life. What an asshole."

Stiles stood frozen on his feet. He couldn't imagine a past like that, he didn't want to. No Derek. But, no Peter, no bite, no werewolves, no banshee Lydia. But Boyd alive, Erica too, maybe, Allison, not motherless, but not here. But still no Derek. He didn't know what to think of that. Such a small intervention had caused so much changes, the pebble in the pond had created a tsunami. Was Derek's existence worth all that?

'Yes' his brain whispered. He doubted Boyd's mother and sister or Erica's parents felt the same way.

"If you were a new soul," Sam said, back up on their feet and their face devoid of emotion as they inspected Stiles from head to toe, "I would make a SINOA call."

Stiles barely heard them. No Derek. No Derek. Everyone alive but no Derek. And he didn't even want to think about this hypothetical future. It hurt him to think about it.

"Don't overthink this, Stiles. If your boy had died, we don't know what would have happened. Maybe Scott would have died from his asthma, maybe your friend Isaac would have been badly injured by his father, or backed in a corner and lashed out, maybe he'd be in jail for murdering him. Maybe Vernon Boyd would have been hit by a car on his way to work, and maybe Erica's seizures would have left her dead, maybe Kate Argent would have killed many others. Life is full of maybe." 

"I know," Stiles managed to say around the lump in his throat, never taking his eyes off Derek's face. "I just feel guilty for not feeling guilty he's alive."

"Guilt works in mysterious ways. So does love. Come closer, I want to show you something. Give me your hand."

Stiles shuffled closer to Sam, who clasped their hands together and tugged until Stiles went on his knees too. "Now I want you to focus on your energy, alright? You're a soul, you leak energy that some can sense, like your friend Lydia if I'm not mistaken. You got it?"

Stiles closed his eyes, unsure of what he was looking for. He didn't feel anything, at first, just the vastness of the dull sensory plane of existence he lived in now, drowning his skin under negative input, like the marks waves left on the shore. He could see the shape of it but the water had already receded. He clung to that image, rocking slightly. He sighed, relaxing in the soft motion of giving and receiving, the waves lulling him into a thoughtless peace.

Sam's voice reached him, surprisingly muffled. "Good, focus on the feeling. Focus on Derek. You good? Okay, now open your eyes," they added after Stiles' nod.

He blinked several times to adjust to the new light in the room. Everywhere, objects shone, some more, some less, some not at all, the rest of the room was swallowed in a bluish haze.

Derek shone the brightest.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of auras. It's... well it's kinda like a cheat code for real life. Or after-life, whatever."

"How...What does it mean?"

Sam let go of his hand to play with a strand of their hair. "Well, I'm sure you're familiar with the vague concept of auras, right?" They waited for Stiles' nod before continuing. "Each aura has a different feeling, and it, how do I say that, seeps through. Your boy here has a beautiful soul, a little drab maybe, but hey, you got shot instead of him and he just realized you loved him back, so we can forgive him that, right?"

"How magnanimous of you," Stiles said, glaring at them, before blinking. "Wait, back?"

"What? You thought you were in love with someone who had just a crush or something?" Sam laughed, like it was the funniest thing in the world. "That guy's gone on you! Look!" they said, pointing at the room. "The brightest objects are the ones that hold a special significance to the person you concentrate on."

There wasn't much, but they were in the McCall living room, not Derek's place. Still, Stiles followed Sam in the hallway, who was holding a miniature sun in his hand. No, Stiles got close enough to recognize what it was.

"That's my keys. Why would Derek care about my keys?"

Sam lifted an unimpressed eyebrow at that. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because this is the set you gave him when you had to leave to visit that college of yours?"

"Yeah, so?"

Sam sighed, and singled out a key, then an other, then an other, then another until nothing was left untouched. "Your house. Your jeep. Scott's house. Scott's bike. Vet clinic. Derek's flat. Argent's safe house. Allison's car. Your file cabinet. Lydia's flat. The safe in your bedroom. And, the very illegal key of the sheriff's station."

Stiles frowned, still not sure why those keys mattered that much to Derek when he'd had them for no more than a couple of days before handing them back.

"You still don't get it, do you?" Stiles shook his head. "You gave him, voluntarily and without even thinking about it, the keys to everything you care about. You invited him all over your life, with blind trust and a carefree smile! How many people do you think did that? His new pack didn't like him all that much, trust was shaky at best, and here you come, saving his life, putting yours in danger and giving him permission to go anywhere he likes! I mean, it got better, y'all finally found your rhythm in the end but man, you don't know what you did to him when you gave him these."

Stiles was speechless. He didn't. It hadn't even registered how this, this insignificant thing could mean so much to Derek. He hadn't even thought about it that much, he just knew he wanted Derek to keep them in case he needed, well, anything, while he was gone.

Oh wow, no wonder everyone knew about his crush, he really hadn't been subtle.

"Well, this was fun, but I'm not forgetting the fact that you're not supposed to be here," Sam said, frowning at Derek as his phone rang.

And Stiles, Stiles could have sworn it was his father's name on the caller ID, but Sam squinted slightly, snapped their fingers and everything turned white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it, since I'm not sure when I'll be able to sit down and finish chapter 5. Comments and kudos always brighten my day ;)


	5. Vengeance is the business of a Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead! Sorry for the wait, but between moving into a new flat and work and everything, things were a bit crazy. But, here I am, with a new chapter I hope you like.  
> Title is from Patrick Rothfuss, a nerd to rule all nerd.

Stiles huffed in frustration.

He was so close to figure it out, so close! Focus, that was the clue. He just needed to concentrate really hard on who he wanted to visit, their face, their personality, every little details he knew about them and it worked! Maybe. Well, he went to the right person sixty percent of the time. ...And actually went somewhere, anywhere, maybe, twenty percent. Alright, maybe less, but it was at least a strong twelve percent.

...yeah that was a work in progress.

Which is why, when Stiles managed to go, and go where he wanted, he almost whooped in glee, fist raised high and he treated himself to a little victory dance.

“That could be considered an act of war, Scott!”

The dancing stopped. What? 

Lydia paced in Derek's living room, her heels clacking against the hard wood floor and her expression dead serious. What was going on? A war? Why? Did Stiles take all the common sense in Beacon Hills with him when he died?  
A sudden flash of light had Stiles squinting, blinding him, and he stared, gobsmacked, as Sam appeared in front of him. They leveled him with a reproachful frown...

“We don't know these people! If you-”

...and snapped their fingers.

“You really need to stop doing that,” Sam calmly said, ignoring the insults a caught off-guard Stiles sent their way, and squashed a small flame on their thigh while they propped themself on a desk.

Stiles pouted. He'd worked hard to get there and now, _now!_ Sam wanted to talk about _rules_. “I don't know what you mean.”

“Oh, so you weren't visiting Huey, Dewey, Louis and whoever else right now?”

“Oh, pretending you don't know my friends now, that's cute. And you never told me I shouldn't! How could I know? You were well aware and let me go anyway, that's as much permission as I ever needed, you know.”

“Well I'm telling you now.”

“Yeah, you're telling me this now, but what aren't you telling me?” Stiles frowned, taking in the harried look Sam sported and the way they pinched their mouth every time their tablet pinged. The flickering fluorescent light in the office building wasn't doing anything for them either. They sighed.

“Let's just say that these jumps aren't... good for you.”

Stiles opened his mouth to ask more details when Sam spoke again. “Well done with Laysa, by the way. Didn't think you had it in you, especially since Gabe never showed you.”

“Laysa? What do you mean? What happened?”

“Figures,” Sam snorted, getting comfortable on a desk, “you have a talent for accomplishing great things by total accident.” 

“Hey, I take offense at that!”

“You should. Anyway. You know, that thing you were upset you couldn't do? Well you did it for Laysa.”

“I did? Awesome!” Stiles grinned. “...How?”

Sam shrugged. “Empathy? Projection? I don't know what's going on in your head and I thank everything living and dead for that.”

“Hey, you're missing out, it's awesome in there,” Stiles said, ignoring the dubious sound they made, “but yeah, you know, hospitals, not-so-good memories and all that. Kinda hard not to... yeah.”

He leaned against a desk, his arms crossed and bit his lip as he thought. He definitely remembered thinking of his mom on that day, the pain, confusion and terror of not knowing what would be his life after. “They both looked so lost. All their plans for the rest of their lives just went crashing down and her wife was left standing there and, and Laysa, she just couldn't do anything. She could just watch. The person she loved the most was suffering because of her and she couldn't do anything to make it better. And I... I know that feeling so I just... I wanted to help.”

Sam hummed quietly. “Well, you did the best you could and it's up to Jenny now. Grief is always so... messy.”

They sat in silence for a while, until the cheerful _ping!_ of Sam tablet made them both jump. Sam rolled their eyes, but another _ping!_ came. They grumbled and took up the tablet with a reluctant frown.

“Alright, so I'm -”

_ping!_

“Just let me-”

_ping!_

“Don't go-”

_ping!_

_ping!_

_ping!_

“ALRIGHT!” Sam yelled in frustration, their finger repeatedly taping harder and harder against the screen.

Then, silence.

Sam took a deep, calming breath, while Stiles watched, bemused, as they forced themself to relax their grip on the device.

“Busy day?”

Sam smiled. “Fuck off.” They then fixed Stiles with both a pointed look and finger. “Don't you-” _ping!_

Sam just flung the tablet to the other side of the room, got up, turned around and disappeared in a flash of light.

His own tablet pinged. Stiles snorted.

***

"What do you mean it's weird?"

"Look, man, all I'm saying is, maybe, maybe, this isn't the usual experience of the DDAs, and it's, you know, weird."

Stiles frowned and turned toward Arno to protest, just to see him flinch, the curls around his face bouncing suddenly. If Stiles were feeling magnanimous, he might consider the shots fired in the busy office the reason for this and not his very effective glare, but he preferred to ignore that part of himself.

He hadn't had to go far for this job as Sam had already beamed them there after rudely sabotaging his visiting hours.  
"I get that," Stiles had to speak up to cover the screams coming from nearby workers, "but it's not that often, and I don't see why we can't anyway."

"I haven't been around as, pardon me," Arno stepped aside to let a lady running in heels pass him by, bent in half, "as long as others, but nobody is smelling anything. Or nobody is talking about it anyway." 

"But like, why smell? I couldn't feel anything when I touched my friend's face when I visited him, if I had a choice I'd much rather have touch, you know?"

More shots. More screams. Arno didn't flinch this time, too busy looking at Stiles with his jaw on the floor. "You what?"

Stiles frowned, still deep in thoughts. "Now that I think about it, it's getting stronger every time. Could become a problem if I collect people is nasty places again."

Stiles inspected the office, ominously quiet again, but didn't miss the look of abject horror on Arno's face. And he doubted it was because of the two bodies riddled with bullets sprawled in front of them. Whatever, he didn't need Arno's help to do his job. 

Was he being callous? Maybe.  
Was he still luckier than the DDA who groaned when she realized Arthur was standing beside her? Certainly.

Arno avoided Stiles like the plague until he disappeared in a burst of light.

Not a big loss, Stiles was not a big fan of co-op in the after-life anyway.

***

When Stiles appeared, he didn't burn. That should have been his first clue. The frames on his left almost fell from the wall when he checked himself for any sneaky fire and he gracelessly pinned them with his shoulder. Smiling faces stared at him, unmoved by the rough treatment. So many faces, some with their eyes closed, some looking away, but always hugging each other. Stiles' breath stuttered. 

So many people, yet...

The room was silent. The entire house was silent. His stomach twisted. The cold he could feel setting in his chest made him shiver in reluctant anticipation. He didn't want to be here. He didn't know why, or how, but something in the back of his head urged him to flee. Stiles pressed his lips together and stood his ground. Facing the patio door, a window slightly to his right, he refused to turn around. He took a deep breath and held it, counting down from ten in his head, his fingers tapping rhythmically on his thighs as he released it. Then he smelled it. That sweet herbal scent floating proudly in the room should have been his second clue, all things considered. That and the tiny splatter of something dark right at the end of his vision.

"Don't look, don't turn around and don't look," he muttered to himself, clenching his fists to stop them from shaking. 

Footsteps alerted him of someone running toward the house. When she appeared at the edge of the driveway, out of breath and a wild look on her face, that's when Stiles knew. He knew why she was here, why she ran with a desperation he'd hoped he would never feel. What he would find behind him.

He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.

The cold settled deep in his bones.

The timid light from the early morning pierced through the clouds, shining through the pine forest and landed softly on the welcome mat that was almost disappearing under so many shoes. Some shoes neatly put in rows, organized, but some thrown carelessly, as if to be picked up right away anyway.

"Julian! Mandy!" the girl yelled, slipping on the wet grass, but never stopping.

_ping!_

Stiles didn't look. What was the point?

She skidded to a stop in front of the door, fumbling with her keys, and still calling for someone, anyone.

“Please! Andrea! Cedric!”

Her hands shook too badly to manage the handle. In the end, she kicked the door in her panic and forced her hands to cooperate. When the door finally clicked and slid open, she threw herself in the room. 

And promptly froze.

Stiles watched her and all he saw was himself.

He had feared being in her place far too many times too feel anything else than a deep seated urge to throw up. She took a step forward, and stopped again, next to him. She still wasn't breathing. The cold he could feel in his bones shifted to a general numbness as she finally took a breath through her teeth.

“Julian...”

Stiles' stomach twisted when her eyes finally moved, jumping from one place to another, and another, her initial stupor being slowly replaced by abject horror. Stiles closed his eyes as she finally took a step past him, her hands covering her mouth.

He was here.  
They were already dead.  
He was alone. 

He knew the logical conclusion to those facts, he knew, and in every other situation he hadn't minded, but this, this felt personal. He had dreaded this situation when he was alive, it had kept him awake at night, worrying about his friends, slowly working on his early ulcer. To see it, well, to see it would mean to turn around and Stiles wasn't sure if he had the strength in him. But to be here, right now, with this girl, and this job and this outcome...

She was going to die.

But hadn't she already?

He moved, in the end. He owed it to her. He gritted his teeth and slowly turned around.

And... Stiles didn't understand what he was seeing. How could so many bodies fit in this small parlor? His brain struggled with the reality of what was before him. How?

The girl was kneeling over one of the corpses, her hands gently caressing the sides of her face as she lay motionless, propped against the side of an armchair.

“Mandy, Mandy please...” she sobbed, her head coming to rest on Mandy's torso.

Stiles watched her cry and whisper words that fell on dead ears, useless apologies and empty promises tucked in between sobs, and a glance at his watch told him TOD was fast approaching. Stiles dreaded to sight of that tortured soul.  
That was until she suddenly lifted her head, the tear stained cheeks contrasting loudly with her hardened expression. Stiles looked at his watch. Huh. He didn't know it could go _backward_. Talk about iron will.

With one last tender touch, she got up, assessing the room with cold eyes.

Stiles came closer. That look meant trouble. He _liked_ it. A thrill of adrenaline he didn't know he could still feel ran through him as she took a steadying breath and got up on the coffee table, gently bending an arm onto the torso beside it.

Stiles joined her and took his time to look at the room.

Every piece of furniture was covered by a corpse, and what seemed like every inch of the wooden floor too. He counted eighteen bodies. Some of them looked barely half of Stiles' age and for the first time since he landed here, Stiles was glad he didn't have any of their names. His heart gave a painful tug at the thought. How could someone get the drop on an entire pack like that? And who...presented them like that? Even weirder, how did they die? No wounds, no blood, no weapons... Except for one.  
The girl seemed to have come to the same conclusion because she marched toward a specific body, carefully stepping over the ones in her way. If one could step over somebody respectfully, the girl managed it.

She knelt down and over a woman, and the only thing out of place in the middle of this barbaric scene was the fact that she was the only one with external wounds. If a face and throat and chest ripped to pieces still counted as _external_. Was that her tongue in her lung?

Not caring about the congealed blood, Stiles watched as she began searching the woman, patting her down completely unfazed by the fact that she was fondling a very bloody dead body. He hummed in appreciation. The things you get used to in a pack.

He might have been lost in the memories of all the disgusting things he had to subject himself to for all these years, because the next thing he knew, the girl was upright and kicking the woman in the head.

“You traitorous bitch! How could you? How could you? You... You...Why?”

With a sudden sens of déjà-vu, Stiles took out his tablet with an urgency that felt like a vice around his heart and fumbled with the screen for a couple of seconds before opening the right file.

“ Alright, so... Johanna, nice to meet you, ah, suicide, what a surprise, I clearly did not expect that and...Thank fucking christ! I wouldn't have been responsible of anything I did if Arthur showed up now.”

Reassured that a blond nightmare with an attitude wouldn't show up today and ruin this already tragic day, Stiles focused once again on the macabre scene in front of him. It seemed that Johanna was back to her detective ways because she was over a man, examining his bloody hands. Huh. Guess they knew who killed the woman after all.

“You did good Julian. I hope you know that.” She took a deep breath. “Now it's my turn.”

For the next hour, Stiles could only watch her make phone call after phone call, each of them leaving her calmer and him impressed, and a little bit scared.

When she was done, she went back to Mandy, and only then did she allowed herself to break apart.

“I'm sorry I wasn't there, but I'm coming, alright? I'm coming.”

She wiped her nose with her sleeve, stood up and went back to the bloody woman. 

“If I didn't-” she bit her lips as her voice broke, “didn't miss them so much already, I'd stay and watch the whole shitshow I just unleashed on your group of two faced assholes.” She kneeled down again, examining the face of the woman with a detached expression. “Your family is going to get a taste of what I'm feeling right now. You really should have killed the whole pack.”

“Hi. You're dead. Not to be creepy but I might be your biggest fan right now.”

Johanna just blinked. That was alright, Stiles could give her a moment. After all, someone who destroyed the ones who murdered her pack, who casually brew herself some tea and sat on the sofa facing her entire dead pack, and then calmly drank it until her hands shook so badly she had to put the cup down to finally choke to death without making a mess, yeah, that person deserved a minute to collect her thoughts.

“H-hi...?”

She blinked again, her eyes focusing on Stiles, mistrust swirling clearly in them, but her soul strangely limpid.

“Hi again. I'm Stiles, I'm you DDA, take your time. I'd come closer but I really don't want to step on them, you know. Beside, they're your pack, you can cozy it up all you want, but me, that'd be just on the wrong side of weird.”

“They're still dead.”

Stiles paused. “I mean...so are you? So... all good here?”

“No, no,” she shook her head, “I just...I thought they'd be here.”

Stiles pulled out his tablet, grinning. “Well in that case I have so good news for you! After those five little questions, you're free to go where you want!”

“And the whole...,” she gestured with her hands at Stiles, her eyebrow dubiously judging him, “game show host, is for everyone or...?”

“Nope, I'm actually really impressed by the whole fire and brimstone and damnation you made happen in such a short amount of time, so that's just me, trying to be nice and effective.”

She said nothing, her eyes going over the parlor to finally stop on a small table at the end of the couch. Stiles turned around. A fresh bouquet of wild flowers had been put in a handmade vase, a wonky “Happy Birthday Alpha Julian” written on the tag in crayon still stuck to the base.

She pressed her lips together and Stiles opted for a more reserved approach.

Stiles was good at his job. He knew it, Sam knew it, and... well that was all. But the point was, calm soul weren't supposed to get duller as you went through the questionnaire. By the end, Johanna wasn't even meeting his gaze.

“You're going to see them again, you know.”

She exhaled as if she'd been punched. “Great, so that I can tell them I came too late and it's my fault they're dead.”

“So, you think your Alpha is going to blame you for something that even he couldn't have prevented?”

“I should have been here!”

“Look,” Stiles started, getting closer, tiptoeing carefully, “I don't know what happened, I don't know why they're all dead like that in the same room, but what I do know is the only thing that your presence would have changed is your time of death in our files.”

“But I would have died with them at least!” Johanna raged, dark billowing black clouds of lightless mist taking shape in her form.

Alright, not good.

“And nobody would have known what happened. You avenged them. You burned those assholes with everyone you knew and you started a manhunt that will end in blood, trust me on that,” Stiles said, shaking his head and banishing the thought of Peter. Peter was not a good person to have in mind when trying to calm someone with survivor's guilt.

“She poisoned them. At Julian's birthday. My alpha,” she sniffed and blinked, willing the tears away before burying it down under a sneer. “They deserve every bit of pain they'll receive, and if that makes me go somewhere not that nice, I don't care.”

Stiles hands flew up in defense, “Don't bite, I'm not the one deciding that, I'm just a glorified bellboy,” Stiles frowned, “well actually I'm more like the one behind the counter, taking you informations, with no power over where you go and oh my god, is this whole thing just a giant hotel?”

Wait wait, so if he worked the counter, the one making the light happen was the bellboy, so did this make Arthur security? And Tala a greeter? The ones handling the files...accounting? Heh, that needed work.

“Dead to DDA?”

“Sorry, I was trying really hard to make the metaphor work but it kind of collapsed on itself.”

“The hotel metaphor? Maybe because the whole hotel in California thing has already been done and it needs some originality?”

Stiles clutched his chest with a painful expression. “I'm hurt. Deeply. Here I am, telling you it's all going to be fine, and you-” Stiles was cut off by a bright burning light, Sam appearing with their usual flair. “Nobody told you interrupting people was rude, Sam?”

In a staggering display of will, Sam ignored him. “Hey there, if it isn't the latest gossip of the office!” they said, a bright smile and an excited glint in their eyes.

“Gossip?”

“Office?” Stiles mouthed.

“Yeah! Do you know how long you made him wait? Girl, I've never seen someone push back the clock as much as you before! And that was some good Old Testament avenging style, made quite a mess upstairs, some overtime for our DDA too.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Stiles said, thumbing his tablet. 

He paused.  
He already submitted the file. She was calm now.  
And for the second time today, dread filled his stomach with a sickening sense of déjà-vu. 

He cleared his throat.“Why are you here exactly?”

“Ah yes,” Sam drawled, looking everywhere but at Stiles, “well, you see, you're a pain in my ass, that's why I'm here.” They cleared their throat. “Stiles Stilinski, I have the dubious honor of releasing you of your functions of California Designated Death Announcer, you will be processed through the system by an alternative branch, that means me, and given the choice of your next destination. The last soul you collected will be your successor and I will personally supervise their apprenticeship. This takes effect immediately and is irrevocable. You dick. Why are you doing this to me, Stiles, love, I thought we were getting along?”

Stiles opened his mouth but no sound got out.

Sam snapped their fingers and the world burned white.

***

Stiles was on fire. His eyes most of all. He lifted a hand in front of his face but the light seemed to come from everywhere. He'd just decided to close them, that the pain wasn't worth it, when it dimmed abruptly. Carefully, he squinted one eye open.

Nothing.

Noooothing.

Like the big nothing only made possible with green screens and computers. Matrix nothing. Nothing on the ground, -was there even a ground?-, nothing to see, just grey. Up and down didn't seem to exist, never mind right or left. And who cared about physics anyway.

And then suddenly, Sam.

"Where are we?"

Sam ignored him, their eyes scanning the tablet held loosely in their hands, a pout tugging at their lips, but one finger held up to give them a minute.

"Pity. You were doing such a good job. I'd hoped I'd have more time," they sighed, "ah what do you know. Anyway. This is the moment for you to choose, Stiles."

"Choose...where I go? I thought that was decided when I lived, no?"

"Yes, that's usually how it's done. But like I said, DDAs are a bit special," they said, finally looking up and around. “Oh wow that's depressing.”

And with a snap of their fingers, they were outside. It didn't look like California. Hell, it didn't look like the U.S. The vineyard at their feet spread as far as the eye could see, and the delicate morning sun warmed up the rolling hills on the horizon. In the distance, a manor stood, old and proud and despite the trill of the birds, a few voices could be heard from under the parasol on the patio. The ivy lazily hugging the old stones framed the picturesque scene.

The tranquility of the scene did nothing to appease Stiles. He frowned. "Why pulled me? I thought I was doing a good job? You told me I was doing a good job."

Actually going ...somewhere meant no more Dad excursions. Or Derek excursions. And that's not something he was eager to let go. Not to mention this job had grown on him.

"You were. Your stats are off the charts, even if team playing isn't your strong suit," Sam's lips twitched. "I'm not the one asking you to leave, that's out of my hands you know."

"But you're my boss. And aren't you someone, you know, important?" The suits, the answers, eating, the mojo, it probably wasn't something everyone could do. Especially the eating. Did Sam like grapes?

Sam's smile turned rueful. "I am, if I say so myself. I would be he CEO, or something, if it was a mortal company."

"Wait, CEO of the after-life? Or just the CALIDDA? But doesn't this make you..." Stiles trailed off, suddenly unsure.

"Yes. Well, no. But yes. But to come back to you, even then, it's still out of my hands."

"But you're my boss, you're the one making the decisions, you're... you're... How?"

A goat bleated nearby and the sound of a kid laughing suffused the morning air.

"Well," Sam tilted their head, choosing their words carefully, "I would be, if you were, hum, you know, completely dead."

***

“But...but you said I died! You said I actually died in that warehouse!” Stiles shouted, hands flying around, nearly hitting Sam in the face. “You can't tell people they died when, you know, they're not actually DEAD! That's not something you do!”

Sam merely smiled. It made Stiles even angrier. Why on earth...well, and beyond, would someone do that? He didn't die, great! Stiles was happy, and a happy Stiles was great. So what? They just took his soul? Just like that? Unless...

Fuck, was he in a coma? Was he lying on a bed, still and almost lifeless? Was he breathing with a machine or on his own? Was Dad visiting often or unable to look at him without seeing his Mom? Was he in Memorial? They did not have much room for a comatose, but he was sure Melissa and his Dad pulled strings to let him stay in Beacon Hills.

Sam cleared their throat. “You okay, man? To be fair, you did die in there, you know, on the cold hard ground after your heroic plunge and all that. I never said you stayed dead, though. Just... mostly dead. Funny thing is, Mother Nature has a soft spot for Sparks, they don't die easy."

“Mother...You know what? Never mind. But I've been told that I killed myself and that was not a nice surprise. But fuck yeah, it was heroic. Nice Princess Bride reference by the way, I liked it.”

“Well, paperwork is a bitch, as you may have noticed, so we have to use some shortcuts. And frankly, who are we to write down 'heroic death' when someone else would say 'very stupid decision'?”

“Holy crap,” Stiles exhaled with a soundless laugh, his fingers digging painfully in his scalp, “you sound like Derek. He's gonna kick my ass, isn't he?”

Sam pinned him with a look. After a while, they said, “Well, only if you want to.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, you can be reinstalled in your body, no harm no foul, well, almost, some PT and all, but back to playing hide-and-seek with the supernatural wilderness soon enough, and then come back after you inevitably brutally die, or,” they paused, looking at him right in the eyes, making sure Stiles was listening, “Or, you could stay and keep doing the astounding job you've been doing, or move on in an other section that suits you better, like intel gathering, or weather man. You know, your name got around and people are harassing me to get you. _Harassing me_ , Stiles.”

Sam gave him a look that showed how done they were with that, but didn't say anything else, simply letting him absorb everything.

He could go back to his life, shrug off the whole story and make it through college and then what? Where would he go? Not far, not if that meant leaving Scott, Derek and everyone else behind. But what did he want to do with his life? Was it going to be that dangerous? Not that it wasn't before, but that was the point, it was before he actually died. 

But what Sam offered him, the sense of accomplishment he got after each job, after he calmed people and talked to them. How Nadejda hugged him when he told her she died, so grateful for it, so happy to have a friendly face at last. How Andrew laughed when he realized he wasn't in pain anymore, even when he knew his parents would probably cry now, but it was okay, they knew it would happen eventually, but will he see Captain America where he was going?  
Or how Colette found it so fascinating. “Even in death you're working, that's the new generation, always had to work to pay for our pensions. Poor lad,” she said, he remembered. Stiles smiled at the memory, that old lady in a hurry to find her husband again. “I do hope we're going to look young again, never had the courage to tell him I didn't like his mustache.”

But his smile froze. The rest wasn't so pretty. He shook his head, unwilling to let the face of Laysa when she realized she would never know her baby boy imprints itself again in his mind. And don't get him started on Jeremiah. At all. Well, he knew how to kill an immortal now at least. Or...

"Where do babies go, Sam?" Stiles asked, quietly.

"Is this about Estelle?"

"She looked so small, and I... I hope she's happy and safe now. She just..." Stiles struggled to find his words, his left thumb worrying his lips while his right arm hugged his abdomen.

"Stiles. She's dead. And she's a baby. She's as safe as she can be. She's safer than you right now. I can't tell you where she went, unless that's you way of telling me you want to work there. Do you want to work there?"

"I don't... know.”

They didn't talk for a while, letting the quiet morning work its magic. A warm breeze made the nearby trees rustle, and for the first time in forever, Stiles felt the warmth on his skin.

“Sam? If I go back and die again, will you be there? Am I going to be working with you again?”

“I'm afraid I can't answer that, Stiles,” they said, a small apologetic smile softening their answer. “Not everybody you reaped got a job.”

“But I like it here.”

Sam's smile grew conflicted. “I know you do. It's not an easy decision.”

What about his dad? Or Scott? Derek? He could go back and see them again, make everything okay again. And maybe die in a couple of months. Or be in the exact same place as Johanna and do the exact same thing. But if he was already there, if they already accepted that he wasn't going to make it, maybe...  
Lydia would kick his ass if she thought he was giving up. But was he really giving up? If he was already here? What could Stiles even do? Johanna couldn't save them, what were the chances that Stiles' presence could change anything? Stiles frowned and mentally kicked his own ass. He already did plenty for them, he wasn't useless, and he knew he was loved. But Lydia screamed and ran every time he came near. He was so close to death. They probably already accepted the inevitable. If he died soon after coming back, he would put them through that pain again, this time on purpose, but if he just... slipped away this time, they'd heal, they could help each other. But his dad...

Stiles sniffed away the tears. His dad had Melissa and Scott. He'd be fine. Derek would be too. Someone would come along and love him, of course they would, who wouldn't? Stiles wasn't special, he just had great taste. He never quite got the hang of what he was feeling for Derek at the time, but he got time to think, in the after-life. It was a shitty place to realize your feelings, no shit, but still.

"Do you want my opinion?" Sam asked after a while, face neutral.

He nodded.

"When you were doing your job, didn't you want to do just what Johanna did? Didn't you crave to make somebody pay for what they did to your souls?” They waited for Stiles to nod again before continuing. “Your capacity for violence when protecting those you love _far_ outweighs your kindness and compassion for anyone else. Your first instinct is revenge. Do you remember? You felt sick when Johanna came into the room, but as soon as she plotted her very nefarious plan, did you notice? All that grief you felt, poof, gone. You love few but you love fiercely. You heart is a fantastic dichotomy. That's not a bad thing, Stiles," they sighed, massaging their forehead. "It just means DDA isn't quite right for you. Now _that's_ a terrible thing because I like you."

"Should I call you Mother, then?" Stiles snarked, mulling over their words.

"Oh, woe is you, Mother Nature likes you and yet you still find room to complain."

"Because you make it seems like I survived everything thrown at me by-- by favoritism!" Stiles gritted his teeth and pointed an accusatory finger at Sam. "I'm smart! I'm resourceful!"

"You are. Which is why you know I'm right. You really should be dead by now. Crazy alpha, Nogitsune, Alpha pack, hunters and monstrosities....and you what? Survived only on intelligence? Nobody can do that, Stiles."

They paused, and sighed again at the stubborn frown of Stiles' face.

"Why didn't Peter kill you? Why, with five overpowered alphas, you lived to tell the tale? Why do you think the Nogitsune chose you? Such an appetizing meal, and safe and sound inside you, where nobody could touch it. So many chances for you to die, so many car accidents, so many little strings of death just... nudged aside."

Stiles kept his mouth shut, his thumb pressing painfully on his lips. 

“So even if by your standard I killed myself, I'm still alive because of what I am. So I don't get a say in what I do with my life, or when I end it. Great.” He shook his head. "That's so messed up."

"What is?" Sam asked, still looking at him with an unearthly focus.

"When I first got here, Julia told me that your suicide category was so extended, like I can't even imagine. But that's not fair you know. And not in the 'that's not faaaaaiiiir' whining type, it's just... not."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because we're human and sometimes we do dumb shit just because we're suffering and we don't see a way out, but we do these things to get attention, or get some release, so we didn't 'do nothing' and killed ourselves, we did something and call out for help but nobody picked up on that! And- and sometimes it's because our brains are the dumbest thing in the world and prevent us from seeing this clearly. And don't talk to me about medical cost! You don't call an ambulance every Tuesday, you know! That would be suicide for some people, but newsflash, a lot of people have to! And if people sometimes choose to keep going and fight despite no getting help because they literally can't, you don't get to tell them they killed themselves without putting those in charge of pricing medicine on trial for mass murder!"

Stiles closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and tried to center himself. The goat bleated its displeasure again.

"You're right."

Stiles' eyes snapped open. "What?"

"I said, you're right. But also wrong. We know there's a lot more to you humans that neat little boxes, but let me ask you a question. In your examples, you said somebody is calling out for help, but nobody picked up on it. What if somebody picked up on it but was too concerned about...let's say, his grades crashing and had him worrying for the future? Do you put him on trial if his friend end up dead?"

"I... well, no, it's not that black and white, the world doesn't work that way."

"Then who do you blame? You seem to want someone to pay." Sam's tone held no judgment. To Stiles they seemed more curious about his gut and biased answer than the prospect of theoretical fairness of moral ethics.

"If I had to blame someone," Stiles started, slowly, thinking, "I would blame those who intentionally harm people and refuse to help. Those who are aware they're doing something harmful but don't care as long as it benefits them, I guess."

"So... are you thinking rich white people or society in its entirety?"

Stiles snorted, "Both I guess, given society lies on the morals and laws rich people make to make them even richer."

Sam seemed to consider this for a second. Their tablet pinged and a slow smile spread on their face.

"Great! I see you've made a decision!”

“No I haven't-”

“I have a job for you then! Perfect position!” 

They clapped their hands and everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it, I'll try to be quicker next time.
> 
> I know I said 6 chapters, but I have quite a lot left so I may have gotten that wrong. Heh, I'll see.


End file.
